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Angelino Tasende has had a fabulously convoluted career so far for a player who is yet to see twenty-three candles on his birthday cake.

Having been snapped up from Deportivo La Coruna’s youth ranks by Manchester City in 2014 the promising left-back was sent on an odyssey of loan spells in between returning back to England from time to time to make occasional Carabao Cup cameos from the bench.

A season-long stint at New York City FC proved to be relatively successful with four assists in 14 games but a subsequent switch to another City-affiliated club in Girona did not, the youngster who idolised Roberto Carlos growing up not making a single appearance. So it was off to Mallorca and then NAC Breda and it was in the dock-side city that the then-20 year old finally began to find his feet and impress. From left-back, he would chalk up three goals and seven assists.

He impressed so much that in June of last year PSV Eindhoven swooped, signing the Spanish Under 21 international on a five-year deal for a reported £5m to retain Angelino in the Eredivisie. Crucially for what follows Manchester City ceded, but only with the insistence of a buy-back clause inserted into the sale - something that's now looking like an incredibly smart move.

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There have always been concerns about Angelino's defensive solidity as an incredibly forward-thinking full-back and those doubts remain but that aside it is no exaggeration to say that last term the player was a revelation as PSV challenged Ajax for the title right up until the final weekend.

At the summation of 2018/19 two Dutch newspapers – De Telegraaf and Algemeen Dagblad – ranked Angelino the third best performer across the league, putting him ahead of the likes of Frenkie De Jong.

A 77.5% pass success rate and an average of 2 key passes and 2.3 long balls per game reveal his consistent impact while most impressively of all a total of nine assists by the season’s end is a jaw-dropping figure.

By way of comparison Manchester City’s primary left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko made three assists – though admittedly having played significantly fewer games – in a side that scored 95 Premier League goals. To put it further into context, had Angelino replicated his creativity in England it would have placed him 8th on the Premier League’s overall list with just one fewer than Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling.

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Understandably then this form pricked the attention of his former employer and unsurprisingly it has led to City considering triggering the aforementioned clause as they seek to secure his services for a fraction of his true worth, just €6m (£5.4m). Indeed, Angelino's true worth could range between anything from the €25m PSG have reportedly offered for him to the kind of fee Man City usually pay for their full-backs - Benjamin Mendy set them back £52m.

For City it is a transfer that makes a good deal of sense, a smart solution to a few problems; he counts as home-grown and that is invaluable while the fitness concerns of Benjamin Mendy - which have seen him miss 78 games over the last two seasons - means the procurement of a specialist left-back is a must.

Furthermore, City’s sustained interest in Juventus’ flying right-back Joao Cancelo suggests that the days of Pep Guardiola’s inverted full-backs may be at an end, with low blocks employed by most of their opponents necessitating new ways to navigate around them.

In this regard Angelino is the perfect recruit; a winger in all but name, a prodigal son, an absolute bargain. If he can perform to the levels expected, there will unlikely be many smarter, more value-for-money signings in the Premier League this summer.