Eight-time German champions Borussia Dortmund have reached an agreement with Chelsea to sign Michy Batshuayi on loan until the end of the season. The Belgian forward, who has been at the Premier League club since the summer of 2016, will wear the number 44 shirt at BVB.

BVB’s Sporting Director Michael Zorc has high hopes for the 24-year-old: “Michy is a young, very interesting striker who boasts a good goalscoring record and has shown his extraordinary quality at Chelsea and Olympique Marseille, in the Belgian league and while playing for the national team.”

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Batshuayi became a member of the professional squad at Standard Liege in February 2011, aged 17, before making his breakthrough during the 2013/14 campaign with 23 goals in 49 matches. His strengths include dynamism and intelligence, as well as good control and the ability to hold the ball up. In 2015/16, his 17 goals made a massive contribution to keeping Olympique Marseille in the French top flight.

An interesting statistic from 2017 highlights Batshuayi’s effectiveness in front of goal. As a Chelsea player, he scored an average of a goal per 88.5 minutes on the pitch – of all the players in the English Premier League who scored at least 10 goals in 2017, only Tottenham Hotspur’s world-class striker Harry Kane was deadlier, netting a goal per 78.9 minutes on average.

Batshuayi, who represented Belgium at EURO 2016, has clear ambitions for his loan spell in Westphalia: “In order to achieve my big objective, I want to play as much as possible and score many goals. The World Cup is taking place in the summer.”