Van der Gijp points former PSV player out as Oranje’s striker: “One hundred percent”

National team coach Ronald Koeman has meanwhile announced his squad for the 2026 World Cup, and former PSV player Donyell Malen is also in the lineup. Malen moved last winter on loan from Aston Villa to AS Roma and managed to score fourteen times in eighteen league matches.

Thanks in part to PSV’s former striker, the Romans secured third place and will play in the Champions League next season. In recent months, partly due to the struggling fitness of Memphis Depay, who is also a former PSV player, there has been frequent discussion about the striker position for the Netherlands national team.

For René van der Gijp, it is clear: Ronald Koeman has to play Malen as a striker during the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Van der Gijp is a big fan of Malen and makes this known in the column De Krantjes of Today Inside.

''You don't have to be an expert to see that you just now need to put Malen in. Jesus Christ. In half a year, he just hits fourteen in. The top scorer had seventeen, Lautaro Martínez'', Gijp praises Malen.

After that, the former PSV player points to two other former strikers from the Eredivisie. ''Malen had exactly as many as Anastasios Douvikas; that’s also impressive. He now plays for Como, which is entering the Champions League. He is just starting in the lineup there. Douvikas, but also Vangelis Pavlidis, are both doing incredibly well'', the Dordrecht analyst says, full of praise.

Van der Gijp is also fully convinced that Malen this season would have been the top scorer in Italy if the striker had been active in Serie A for the entire season. ''I could see it in Pavlidis, but I didn’t have the idea that there were so many clubs in the Netherlands interested in Douvikas. If Malen had played the whole season at Roma, he would have become the top scorer with ease. You always, really always, have to start with Malen. One hundred percent'', concludes Gijp.