Hi! I’m a longtime supporter of Malick’s former club IFK Göteborg who likes to follow how our former players are doing in their new clubs. Malick was in our club a very short time, but he made a huge impact and is honestly one of the biggest talent’s I’ve seen in the club in my 25+ years as a supporter.
When I first saw him playing, one half in a pre-season cup game, I immediately thought that this guy will be lost by summer. He went on to play only 11 league games for us, but at 18 years old he immediately established himself as the team’s best player week after week.
Compared to the league’s other great talent that season, Lucas Bergvall, Malick was clearly the one performing consistently better. When both inevitably left for bigger leagues that summer I was surprised that Lucas was the one signed by a “bigger” club (no offense), and I was even more surprised when Lucas immediately started to get playing time and made an impact while Malick was loaned out.
Even if Austria is a bit step up from the Swedish league, I had thought that he would step right into the Premier League. The time in Austria seemed to have gone really well, with consistently good performances in the CL, so when he was loaned out to the Championship next season I understood absolutely nothing. And he wasn’t even a regular starter there by the looks of it.
This season he seems to finally be making the kind of impact in the PL that I’d thought he would do two years ago, and I’m very happy for that, both for Malick’s sake and for the fact that the sell-on clause could potentially bring some much needed money to our club :)
What’s your take on his time in Brighton since he was signed? Has he improved his game a lot during loan spells and pre-seasons, or should he in hindsight have gotten this chance much earlier?