Marseille fans worried that their push for European football next season was beginning to stutter will be relieved to have seen Milik arrive at the Orange Vélodrome in the winter transfer window.

He may not have got off to a winning start on his debut - a 3-1 loss to AS Monaco last Saturday - but having played just 30 minutes off the bench, there is plenty more to come from the prolific Pole…

Back story:

Born in Tychy - the hometown of Polish brewery Tyskie - the young Milik was always more interested in athletic pastimes and was even picked out by Spanish sports weekly Don Balón as one of the 101 most talented youngsters in world football in 2012, when he was 18 years old.

At that point he was still plying his trade in the Polish Ekstraklasa with Gornik Zabrze, and he spurned reported interest from the English Premier League to sign for Bundesliga outfit Bayer Leverkusen a season later. His career never really took off in Germany, and after a loan spell at Augsburg he tried his hand at the Dutch Eredivisie with Ajax.

To say it went well in the Netherlands would be a gross understatement. Milik scored 47 goals, assisting 21 more, in just 76 games over the next two seasons with the record Dutch champions, and Napoli saw fit to pay an eight-figure sum for his services when Gonzalo Higuain left for Juventus in 2016.

The goals continued at the San Paolo, now officially known as the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona - 114 strikes and 34 assists in 273 games to be precise - and although Milik helped his side to the Coppa Italia last season, was allowed to move midway through this campaign, initially on loan with an option to buy.

Style of play:

A big, physical, left-footed striker, Milik is able to make and take chances, his skill in finding and forcing space and powerful shot allied to good technique and a quick footballing mind making him a nightmare for opposition defenders. In terms of style he is not too dissimilar from former Monaco forward Christian Vieri, who spent the prime of his career with Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Current campaign:

Milik had made clear his desire to leave Napoli at the start of this season, and as such was not included in their Italian Serie A or UEFA Europa League squads. He has kept busy with the Poland national team, however, where he partners Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski in attack, playing seven games in 2020/21, most notably scoring one and assisting another in his nation's 5-1 win over Finland in October.

What they said:

"I'm very satisfied because we've signed one of the best players in his positions in Europe. He's a very good player. Arkadiusz Milik has technical and physical qualities, he's a good finisher. He proved that he had personality at Leverkusen when he was very young, at Ajax but also more recently with Napoli in the Champions League or with the national team where he showed a lot of determination."

- Marseille sporting director Pablo Longoria.

"I have a lot of respect for him and what he's achieved in football. He was a childhood idol of mine. I followed him closely and was inspired by him."

- Milik on his sporting idol, Cristiano Ronaldo.