This week, Liverpool have been linked with one of Europe's most exciting attackers, PSV's Donyell Malen.
The 22-year-old is thought of as a player with an extremely high ceiling, and he is already a team-mate of current Liverpool stars Virgil Van Dijk and Georginio Wijnaldum with the Dutch national side.
This could hand the Reds a crucial advantage when making a move for the attacker, particularly because his form this season will have attracted plenty of admirers from across Europe.
Across all competitions, he’s scored 25 goals whilst also registering a further seven assists. That goal tally breaks down to an impressive average of 0.67 goals per 90 and is slightly better than his xG average of 0.6, this is good.
He tends to feature as a centre forward within Roger Schmidt’s favoured 4222 formation, although he can also play out on the left of an attack, as he does regularly for the Netherlands.
The Dutchman is predominantly right-footed, therefore playing on the left naturally opens up more opportunities for him to cut inside onto his favoured foot in order to get shots off on goal, similar to how Sadio Mane operates for Liverpool.
Yet, what’s clear when you watch the player is that he also exhibits comfort in using his weaker left when required to do so, taking on shots or threading passes into the feet of teammates. This is one of the reasons why he operates more than adequately in a central role as well as out wide.
Due to the fact he plays for one of the more domineering teams in the Eredivisie, he’s usually presented with plenty of shooting opportunities and across all competitions this season, he has averaged 3.93 efforts per 90.
This is quite high, particularly when you consider that Mohamed Salah takes the highest average number of shots at Liverpool, and he’s taken roughly 2.9 across all competitions this year.
Questions do then naturally arise about how fewer shots would impact Malen’s goal return if he did join Liverpool, especially given the increase in quality of opposition in the Premier League when compared to Holland’s top tier.
It’s a risk that would have to be weighed up by the recruitment team if any move was made by the Reds.
Away from the scoring side of things, Malen has plenty of likeable physical attributes. He stands at 5 foot 10 and is quick in a foot race and unpredictable on the ball. He’s averaged 5.9 dribbles per 90 this season, with over 45.2% proving successful.
PSV are the third most aggressive side in the league in terms of PPDA, a metric widely used to gauge pressing high up the field without the ball. Therefore you can assume with some certainty that Malen is a strong contributor to his side's pressing out of possession.
It’s not yet clear how concrete the rumours linking the 22-year-old to Anfield are. Yet his profile ticks plenty of Liverpool boxes in terms of being a versatile forward who can score, create, take players on and offer a presence in pressing situations.
A transfer would carry the usual risks in terms of uncertainty about how the player’s skill set would translate into a tougher league, yet these questions can only usually be answered after a move has happened.
With Liverpool set to sign at least one new forward in the summer, you can understand why Malen is one of the players reportedly on the shortlist.
