Former Arsenal man firing his team to title glory with 6 goals in 5 games

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If you asked Borussia Dortmund supporters their opinion of Donyell Malen only a month or so ago, even the more polite bricks in the club’s fabled ‘yellow wall’ would have to admit that the £25 million signing from PSV Eindhoven had been a bit of a disappointment. 

How times change.

As Edin Terzic’s side put four past Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday – profiting ruthlessly from Bayern Munich’s now-annual slip up at Mainz – it’s fitting that it was Malen who bookended one of Dortmund’s finest performances of the entire campaign. He is, after all, rapidly emerging as the surprise spearhead of a dramatic, Die Schwarzgelben title charge.

He scored the first of the day against Oliver Glasner’s Frankfurt, and the last too. 

Before the 6-1 obliteration of Koln on March 18^th, the one-time Arsenal youngster had only scored six goals in 42 Bundesliga games. He’s doubled that tally in the space of just five weeks. In fact, Malen’s brace against Frankfurt – his first ever on German soil – meant the Dutch international has now scored in five successive Bundesliga matchdays. 

Maintain that form during the season’s final stretch, Dortmund now a point clear of stuttering Bayern with only five to play, and the Meisterschale will be heading to Signal Iduna Park for the first time since the days of Jurgen Klopp, Robert Lewandowski and Shinji Kagawa in 2012. 

Former Arsenal striker Donyell Malen firing Dortmund to Bundesliga glory

“Today was the best performance we’ve seen from Donny in a BVB shirt,” smiled Terzic on Saturday, a man who started his career at Arsenal finally living up to the expectations that surrounded him when arriving as a replacement for Jadon Sancho two years ago. 

“(Malen) played an outstanding game. He had already improved throughout the course of the first half of the season, but he was always a bit unlucky. He was one or two centimetres off, and missing that last little bit of conviction in his finishing.  

“Now you can see what capabilities he has.”

With Arsenal travelling to Manchester City on Wednesday night, Malen’s old employers know that defeat could leave their title hopes hanging by a thread.  

But barring a similar dip in form, another perennially underachieving European giant could be about to bring an overdue end to their own lengthy title drought in May.