Unai Emery’s Aston Villa face the unenviable task of travelling away from home to face reigning Premier League champions Manchester City later this afternoon.
The Villans have already beaten Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United during the Spaniard’s time in charge of the club and, therefore, have proven that they can go to the leading teams in the division and pick up results.
However, Villa head into the match off the back of a disappointing 4-2 defeat to Leicester City on their own turf last time out in the top-flight.
Will Lucas Digne be dropped against Manchester City?
Ahead of their clash with the Foxes, journalist Ashley Preece described the left-back competition between Alex Moreno and Lucas Digne as a nice “problem” for the manager to have.
Emery selected the latter from the start against Brendan Rodgers’ side and was let down by the French international as the former Everton man put in a woeful first-half performance.
As per Sofascore, Digne lost 100% of his individual duels and failed to make a single tackle, block or interception, whilst being dribbled past once. This shows that the full-back was bullied by the opposition and did not compete well enough in physical battles to gain an advantage for his side.
He was also caught out for Leicester’s second and third goals as the defender allowed Kelechi Iheanacho to run past him in the six-yard box to head past Emi Martinez before allowing Tete to get a free run at Tyrone Mings for the third.
Will Alex Moreno start against Manchester City?
Moreno came on to replace him at half-time and put up more of a fight by winning two of his three individual battles, whilst also completing 100% of his attempted dribbles.
The Spaniard was caught out in behind for Leicester’s fourth goal, after attempting to sweep up behind Mings, but the ex-Real Betis battler showed more signs of quality than Digne did in his time on the pitch.
Moreno, who has won 67% of his aerial duels in the Premier League since arriving at the club, was once dubbed “tough” by journalist Josh Bunting and Emery could need the 5 foot 9 gem’s strong defending to keep the likes of Riyad Mahrez and Kevin de Bruyne quiet today.
Digne’s disappointing performance against the Foxes suggests that the dud would be ripped to shreds and bullied by Pep Guardiola’s side and that is why the head coach must solve his left-back problem by unleashing the January signing from the start.
