The £44m defender signing who simply won’t solve all Man Utd’s defensive woes

Manchester United might be in the midst of a mild crisis, and the playing staff may be licking their wounds following a comprehensive 3-0 defeat at the hands of cross-town rivals Manchester City, but that doesn’t mean their transfer team get to take a break – and if the most recent rumours emanating from Spain can be believed, they’re currently taking a lengthy look at Real Sociedad centre-back Robin le Normand.

Born in France but now a naturalised Spanish citizen with six caps for the national team, Le Normand has impressed over the course of the past two seasons and was a key member of the Sociedad squad that qualified for this year’s Champions League and who currently sit fifth in La Liga. But how likely is a move to Manchester, and what would he bring to Erik ten Hag’s struggling side?

Le Normand is something of a late bloomer. Signing for Sociedad from Brest in 2016, he only made his senior debut in Spain at the age of 22 and didn’t establish himself as a first-team regular until he was 23, but has gone from strength to strength since. He is now 26 and has been a fixture for his team for the past three years, drawing rave reviews along the way.

Perhaps unusually for a modern centre-half, or at least one linked with several major clubs (Real Madrid and Liverpool have both come up in Spanish media reports as well as United), Le Normand isn’t the most modern of defenders. Although he’s a good distributor of the ball, he isn’t noted for his technical ability or for attempting to take the ball out of defence – and very, very rarely dribbles the ball at all, taking on his man just 14 times since he debuting in La Liga nearly five years ago.

Le Normand is much more old-fashioned than that – he’s a classical centre-back who dominates in the air, shows good judgement in the tackle and uses smart positioning to snuff plays out before they happen, and who keeps his play in possession simple and economical.

He may not dribble much himself, but he wins around two-thirds of his one-on-ones when the opposition tries to take it past him, and has similar percentages for his tackling. Neither number is especially extraordinary, but where he excels is in his understanding of the game – he seldom gives up much space, is fantastic at cutting out the best passing or shooting angles and is remarkably cool under pressure, seldom making mistakes when being closed down and sharp enough to keep the ball out of harm’s way.

He’s also hugely impressive in the air. Stood at 6’2”, he may not be a giant, but he hardly ever gets beaten to a high ball, winning the better part of four aerial duels in an average match, which is up there with the best in Europe. If the opposition are playing direct football, Le Normand is exactly the kind of defender you want in your backline.

So the idea, then, would be for Le Normand to act as a foil to a more technically-inclined and less physically impressive player such as Lisandro Martínez. Of course, United have height in their defence and good aerial defence already in the shape of Raphaël Varane and Harry Maguire, but if Ten Hag decides he doesn’t trust the latter enough in the long run despite his recent recall to the starting eleven, then Le Normand provides a very good alternative to Varane should the former Real Madrid defender be injured, suffer a dip in form, or simply need some assistance against an especially route one-happy opponent.

Nevertheless, while Le Normand is an undeniably impressive player, it’s fair to say that he doesn’t offer United attributes they don’t already have – although given the lack of form of so many of their players, it may be that Ten Hag simply wants to refresh and improve the squad’s depth. United were heavily linked with a centre-back all summer, but missed out on former Napoli man Kim Min-Jae and wound up just adding Jonny Evans to their back line, and given that United have struggled for options during their current defensive injury crisis it does make a certain degree of sense to bring an extra body in, especially if Maguire ends up leaving.

If the England defender gets back to something approaching his best, of course – and he’s certainly been a much steadier presence than usual lately – then perhaps Le Normand isn’t so necessary, especially when there are many other areas of the team which badly need improvement. The reports in Spain suggest that a bid of around £44m would be needed to acquire Le Normand’s services, not exactly loose change, and his mandatory release clause is set at €75m (£65.4m). It is also reported that Sociedad don’t want to sell a player whose contract runs until 2026.

One would also imagine that if Sociedad make it back into the Champions League, which seems eminently plausible as it stands, then United would find it hard to tempt Le Normand to Old Trafford if they can’t do the same themselves. Given that they are already eight points off the pace for the top four, that may be an issue. Still, they could surely bump up his wages by a fair whack, and that often does the job.

Ultimately, Le Normand is a very fine player but one who doesn’t plug a hole United really have in terms of his skillset, and while he would certainly upgrade the squad – it’s hard to argue that a towering centre-back should be top of the shopping list when so much else simply isn’t working.