Dan Bardell feels Aston Villa are yet to see the best of £25million Lucas Digne
We’re delighted to welcome The Athletic’s Dan Bardell as our exclusive Aston Villa columnist each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at the club…
Lucas Digne’s big-money arrival at Aston Villa has not yet had as much of an impact as hoped in an underperforming team believes Dan Bardell.
Sometimes lost among the headline-grabbing acquisitions of Philippe Coutinho and Diego Carlos is the fact that the Lions shelled out £25million to bring in the France international from Everton last January as part of a sustained drive to lift the level at quality in this side.
But while Bardell feels that the 29-year-old’s ceiling is higher than the man he replaced, the now-Newcastle player Matt Targett, he doesn’t feel that the upgrade has hit the heights yet over his first year.
When speaking exclusively to Villa News he said: “I think he ended last season as one of Villa’s better players and I could see why we’d brought him in, in that he was a definitive upgrade on Matt Targett through what he was giving Villa going forward.
“He was creating a lot of chances for us and he got a couple of assists I think towards the back end of the season.
“I’ve always been a massive fan of Digne at Everton. Watching him for France as well, I think he’s a fantastic left-back.
“I don’t think Villa have seen anywhere near the best of him at the moment. I don’t think he’s started the season well, but then you could point the finger at many Villa players and say that.
“So it feels like it’s more of a collective thing because it feels like there’s very few players who have started the season well.
“But Lucas Digne’s someone I’d want to see more from because at the end of the day he’s a top, top left-back.
“You spend £25million on a left-back then you want to see something and I think that at the moment Villa aren’t seeing anywhere near the best of him.
“For outsiders looking in at Villa you would say, ‘Has he been a massive upgrade on Targett?’ Not yet. But potentially could it be? I would say his ceiling’s a lot higher than Matt Targett’s, especially going forward.
“But at the moment it hasn’t made a huge difference to the way Villa line up and how they play. Not as much as I’d have liked it to anyway, but I am a big fan of his so it’s disappointing.”
On paper a net spend of £10million to buy Digne and sell Targett to the Magpies looks like a sensible piece of business, but the difference has not been as clear as hoped.
With the former Toffee now ruled out with a stress fracture it is another set back for the Villans’ attempts to raise the standards on the pitch, following major injuries first to Carlos and now also to free agent summer signing Boubacar Kamara.
The club look like they are making the right moves a lot of the time, but whether it is bad luck or a mishandling of the talent once it arrives they are yet to hit on a proper formula for success so far so the moves for the likes of Digne remain a work in progress.
In other Aston Villa news, the club are interested in Chelsea’s Trevoh Chalobah in January.