{"id":369768,"date":"2026-01-14T18:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/369768\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:04:12","slug":"aston-villa-stars-exit-decision-purely-on-specific-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/369768\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston Villa Star’s Exit Decision ‘Purely On’ Specific Reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stu Forster\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

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Donyell Malen wants to leave Aston Villa<\/a> for Roma due to his desire to play as a number 9 on a regular basis, with the decision based purely on football matters, according to journalist John Percy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Last January, Aston Villa shelled out \u00a321m to Borussia Dortmund to secure the versatile forward, who has earned praise from Unai Emery for his tactical intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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A year on, Roma are closing in on the signing of the 26-year-old with a deal structured around a \u00a32m loan fee and a \u00a325m obligation to buy.<\/p>\n

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Malen backed himself to succeed at Aston Villa<\/a>, despite a tough Premier League adaptation period, as recently as November.<\/p>\n

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It is suggested that Emery does rate Malen, but views him more as a second striker, with Ollie Watkins the central striker.<\/p>\n

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Malen has largely been playing second fiddle to Watkins this season, featuring sporadically yet always making an impact when called upon.<\/p>\n

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At the weekend, he started in his preferred central role and set up a crucial assist in the FA Cup clash against Tottenham Hotspur<\/a>, helping the Villans edge a 2-1 victory.<\/p>\n

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Emery, however, does not see the 26-year-old as an automatic starter, with Malen having started only five Premier League games this season.<\/p>\n

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Star
\nOn loan from<\/p>\n

Evan Ferguson
\nBrighton<\/p>\n

Kostas Tsimikas
\nLiverpool<\/p>\n

Leon Bailey
\nAston Villa<\/p>\n

Roma\u2019s current loan stars<\/p>\n

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Still, he has delivered seven goals and two assists in 29 appearances across all competitions.<\/p>\n

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Roma have been seeking to sign Malen this month and the attacker wants the move for footballing reasons.<\/p>\n

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Malen wants to play more games as the central striker, something which he would be unlikely to get by staying at Villa Park.<\/p>\n

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He may also have concerns about game time in general, with one former Dutch star claiming that last term Malen was \u2018quite upset at having played so little\u2019 for Aston Villa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Atletico Madrid have also been in the mix for Malen, but Roma retained pole position given their agreement with Aston Villa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Villa have added promising Brazilian forward Alysson to their squad this month, but have lost out on Conor Gallagher to Tottenham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stu Forster\/Getty Images \u00a0 Donyell Malen wants to leave Aston Villa for Roma due to his desire to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-369768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}