Digne starts for Everton as Guilbert finally earns place in Villa team

Lucas Digne (£6.0m) came through his fitness doubts this week to keep hold of his starting place at left-back for Everton.

He makes a third successive start of the season as the Toffees travel to Aston Villa for the latest edition of Friday Night Football.

Despite the summer signing of Djibril Sidibé (£5.5m), Seamus Coleman (£5.5m) still starts at right-back.

Everton manager Marco Silva continues to delay Moise Kean‘s (£6.9m) first Premier League start, leaving him on the bench once again.

In his place is Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6.0m), who has not particularly impressed going forward in 2019/20, with just one effort on goal in two matches.

Judging by Silva’s pre-match comments, it does seem as if we’ll have to wait before Kean is the established number one centre-forward at Everton.

“(He will start games) when he shows me in training sessions he is ready to. He needs a better moment than the others. 19-years-old player, we have to give him enough time to perform in the way we want. Now we start with Dominic up-front with a solution from the bench and Moise is one of them.” – Marco Silva

Meanwhile, Silva was enforced into one change from the side that beat Watford in Gameweek 2.

Jean-Philippe Gbamin (£5.0m) misses out, which sees Morgan Schneiderlin (£4.5m) make an immediate return from suspension in central midfield.

There are just two changes for Aston Villa following their defeat to Bournemouth in Gameweek 2.

Frederic Guilbert (£4.4m) makes a first appearance of the season, which is good news for his ownership both in FPL and the Sky Sports Fantasy game.

The right-back comes in for Ahmed El Mohamady (£4.5m) having not been involved in either of the first two matches of the season.

However, Dean Smith’s pre-match quotes don’t particularly inspire confience that he will be in the side regularly though, as it sounds as if he has been thrown in to provide something different.

“I’ve always said you always have to earn the right to get into the team. You know, Elmohamady’s done okay but Fred’s been knocking on the door, working hard in training. I just felt after his performances in pre-season he might give us a different dynamic.” – Dean Smith

The other alteration is further up the field where Anwar El Ghazi (£5.5m) drops out for Jota (£5.9m).

“El Ghazi’s not really been at his best in the final third for us and I just felt Jota, who also had a really good pre-season, can create a little bit down that side.” – Dean Smith

Aston Villa XI: Heaton; Taylor, Mings, Engels, Guilbert; McGinn, D Luiz, Grealish; Trezeguet, Wesley, Jota.

Everton XI: Pickford; Digne, Mina, Keane, Coleman; A Gomes, Schneiderlin; Bernard, Sigurdsson, Richarlison; Calvert-Lewin.