Everton’s creator supreme Lucas Digne has vowed to keep creating goalscoring chances for his team-mates after providing yet another assist on his Premier League return.
Digne, playing in his first top flight match since undergoing surgery on an ankle ligament injury, set up Alex Iwobi for the Blues’ opening goal in their 2-1 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Although he was being deployed in a more advanced left midfield role at Molineux, the assist was the France international’s fifth from just nine Premier League matches this season – a total unsurpassed by any other top-flight defender and bettered by only Harry Kane, Bruno Fernandes, Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish.
Digne told evertontv : “I’m very happy with the statistics.
“It’s not bad for a defender!
“To play the cross with your first touch is sometimes the best solution. You can have more space to make the pass and you give time to the striker to shoot. It’s what happened [against Wolves] with Alex and it was perfect.
“It is part of my job to give assists and I’m very happy when I can help the team to win.
“It was the first time I played left wing from the start of the game.
“Maybe two years ago, I played 10 minutes in that position, in my first game in the Premier League.
“It was new for me but I have to help the team. I think in modern football, a good player can play everywhere.”
Digne – who manager Carlo Ancelotti declared before his return in the FA Cup against Rotherham, is very close to signing a new contract – also thanked the Evertonians for all their messages of support that helped inspire him to come back ahead of schedule.
He added: “I worked a lot since the beginning of my surgery.
“I think I took just two days off. But, no pain, no gain, like everybody says.
“It was my goal to be back as soon as possible. I worked hard every day to be back. Now, it’s paid off. I am very happy to be back with the team and to win.
“I just want to say a big thank you to the medical staff at Everton. They helped me a lot every day.
“The fans supported me a lot, too, they sent me a lot of messages every day. I want to say a big thank you to them because I could never imagine I would receive so many messages like this. It was just amazing.”
