Donyell Malen has scored five of Roma’s first eight Serie A goals. His opening-round hat trick powered a 4-0 win over Fiorentina, then two more goals arrived in another 4-0 victory at Lecce. Roma sits first after two rounds, while Malen has reached 19 goals in his first 20 league appearances for the club. The player Aston Villa added for attacking depth has become something much more specific in Rome: Gian Piero Gasperini’s full-time No. 9.
The shift isn’t a reinvention. Malen had already shown at PSV that he could score through the middle, but Borussia Dortmund and Villa often asked him to begin from the right or move between several attacking positions. Unai Emery trained him as a right-sided forward, a No. 10 and a striker. Across 35 Premier League appearances for Villa, he started only seven, yet still scored seven goals. Roma replaced that flexibility with a fixed job.
Gasperini made the plan explicit after Malen arrived on loan in January. He said the forward had too often ended up wide in a 4-2-3-1 and argued that the central role was his natural position. “I see him in that central role, where I think he can be decisive,” Gasperini said. Roma wasn’t simply adding pace or cover. It was promising Malen the shortest possible route to goal.
That arrangement quickly became permanent. Malen scored 14 times in 18 Serie A appearances during the second half of last season, surpassing Mario Balotelli’s 12-goal mark for the most league goals by a January arrival since Serie A introduced its winter transfer market. Roma completed his transfer in May with a contract through June 30, 2030. He has started every one of his 20 league appearances for the club.
The opening two matches show how that commitment shapes Roma’s attack. Gasperini has used a 3-4-2-1, with Malen alone at the top and two creators underneath. Paulo Dybala and Rodrigo Mora filled those spaces against Fiorentina; Dybala and Matías Soulé did so at Lecce. The names changed, but the center forward’s location didn’t. Roma’s wingbacks stretched the field while Malen remained close enough to the center backs to attack the first opening.
Why Roma’s No. 9 role suits Malen
His starting point changes the geometry of each possession. When Roma wins the ball or escapes pressure, Malen is already positioned between defenders rather than having to travel inward from the touchline. He can check short, pin a center back or sprint into the channel while Dybala and the second attacking midfielder receive between the lines. The fourth-minute opener at Lecce fit the pattern, with Roma releasing him from the central position before Lecce could settle.
The volume has risen with the role. In his final Premier League season at Villa, Malen averaged about 3.7 shots and 6.2 opposition-box touches per 90 minutes. During his first Roma league campaign, those figures climbed to roughly 4.3 shots and 8.2 box touches. His scoring rate rose from 0.55 to 0.86 goals per 90. Different leagues and teams prevent a perfect comparison, but Roma is plainly giving him more repeated access to the area where he is most dangerous.
Five goals from 10 shots is unlikely to become his normal rate. FotMob’s model places the chances at roughly 2.8 expected goals, so Malen has already finished well above the quality of the opportunities created. The repeatable elements sit beneath the conversion spike: eight of his 10 attempts have come inside the box, and Roma has kept feeding him from advanced central positions.
Gasperini’s comparison with Gonzalo Higuaín belongs inside that narrow tactical frame. He pointed to the speed of Malen’s control and shot, along with his burst over the first few yards, while noting that the two forwards aren’t built the same way. Malen doesn’t need Higuaín’s physical profile to reproduce the useful part of the resemblance. He needs one touch to prepare the finish and a fraction of a second before the defender closes him.
The contrast with England is especially sharp now. Aston Villa’s current attacking rebuild has opened the Premier League season without a goal, while Roma has committed to a forward Villa treated as one option among several. That doesn’t make the sale an obvious mistake. Malen was productive in limited minutes, and Villa has since chosen a different group of attackers. It does show how quickly a player’s value can change when a coach removes positional uncertainty.
Two matches can’t define Roma’s season, and a stronger examination arrives against Atalanta. Malen’s transformation, however, began months before this five-goal burst. Nineteen goals in 20 league appearances, all of them starts, is too long a sequence to dismiss as a two-match spike. Roma didn’t discover a different footballer. It gave the existing one a permanent address in the penalty area.
