On Sunday, West Ham United fan page The Boleyn Boys ran a Twitter poll asking supporters to vote on whether Lucas Digne would be a good signing during the January transfer window. 90 per cent responded with a resounding ‘yes’.
As for the other ten per cent, well they obviously haven’t watched the £18 million France international closely enough since he moved to the Premier League from Barcelona in 2018. Or that they’ve been blinded to Arthur Masuaku’s cumulative faults by that dramatic late winner against bitter rivals Chelsea in December.
What cannot be disputed is that, in the injury-enforced absence of David Moyes’ first-choice left-back Aaron Cresswell, West Ham do not look like the same team.
Cresswell’s wonderful set-piece ability remains a hugely important source of creativity for the Hammers and he remains a substantial upgrade on Masuaku at both ends of the pitch.
Stylistically speaking, Digne and Cresswell are two almost identical peas in a footballing pod. Both are dead-ball masters and love nothing more than racing forward on the overlap before whipping an inch-perfect cross into the penalty area.
No full-back provided more assists in the Premier League than Cresswell last season (eight). But Digne, with seven, was not far behind.
And, according to The Mail, Moyes could return to his old stomping ground to offer Digne an escape route out of Everton during the final few weeks of the January transfer window.
There’s no reason to believe that they could not play together in the same starting XI either; Digne looks well-suited to a wing-back role while Cresswell has produced some of his finest performances under Moyes as a left-sided centre-half in a back-three.
Digne is expected to leave Goodison Park this month following a high-profile fall-out with Rafa Benitez and the subsequent arrival of Vitaliy Mykolenko from Dinamo Kiev.
One wonders how many Everton supporters would rather see Benitez leave before their lethal left-back. 90 per cent, perhaps?
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