Earlier this week, Aston Villa announced the signing of left-back Lucas Digne from Everton.
The highly-rated French international became available for transfer following a high-profile fall out with manager Rafael Benitez earlier in the season.
Digne wasn’t happy with the constraints put on him by the new Everton boss who wanted the 28-year-old to prioritise defensive solidity over more expansive attacking football.
His potential availability in this window led to tentative links with Manchester United. The Reds do, of course, have full international left-backs already at the club in the forms of Luke Shaw and Alex Telles.
Yet the former has struggled to consistently produce his best form, whilst the latter hasn’t really been able to step up consistently in his place.
United’s priority position in which they want to strengthen remains the midfield, yet there’s a chance recruiting a new left-back may increase in importance over the next 12 months unless the form of United’s current two improves.
Ralf Rangnick might then be working behind the scenes now with club officials to draw up a shortlist of players to target in the future.
With that in mind, below are three left-backs from around Europe who are enjoying impressive campaigns and who could end up catching the eye of United’s recruitment team.
David Raum - Hoffenheim - 23
This is Raum’s first season in the Bundesliga, yet he has been one of the standout players in the competition so far.
He was highly impressive in Bundesliga II last season, registering a league-high 15 assists and helping Furth secure promotion. On the back of that impressive campaign, he joined Hoffenheim and has hit the ground running in Germany’s top tier.
He’s scored two goals and registered two assists across his last four league matches, whilst according to Wyscout, he currently boasts the highest Expected Assist (xA) total across the whole division (6.93).
Angelino - RB Leipzig - 25
Once of fierce rivals Manchester City, Angelino will be a familiar name for many United fans.
He joined Pep Guardiola’s side as a 21-year-old from PSV, but failed to make much of an impression, managing just six Premier League appearances before heading out on loan to Leipzig in the second half of the 2019/20 season.
With more regular game time though Angelino thrived, impressing current Bayern Munich manager and then Leipzig boss Julian Nagelsmann enough to make the move permanent that summer.
Despite his size - 5ft9in - he’s a tenacious and reliable defender who often proves difficult to overcome in 1v1 duels. Whilst going forward, he’s a lethal asset capable of delivering a wide range of dangerous balls into the penalty area.
That’s a key reason why he boasts an impressive 23 assists across his two and a half seasons with the club.
Andrea Cambiaso - Genoa - 21
Relatively speaking, Cambiaso is in the infancy of his career, but he looks set to have a very bright future.
He only made his Serie A debut this season but hasn’t taken long to establish himself both as a key member of the Genoa squad and one of the division’s budding stars.
The 21-year-old is effective and versatile, capable of playing on the right as well as on the left.
He’s so far got the joint second highest number of assists for all left-backs across Europe’s top five leagues (four) - and all came from open play.
Whilst there's still room for further development to his game, the potential he’s shown so far is a big reason why he’s already attracting interest from some big Premier League sides such as Leicester City and West Ham.
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