However, a report by the Athletic states that Digne’s exclusion from the match day squad was due to an argument with Benitez, as opposed to a tactical change.
The report claims that despite Benitez claiming that Digne was simply “unavailable” in his pre-match interview, he cryptically suggested the left-back being dropped was more than tactical by saying “as a manager, you have to make decisions and you have to do your team selection.”
There were rumours on the night over what the reasoning for dropping one of the club’s more senior players.
Yet it has come to light that Digne was not injured or unavailable for the game. Instead, he was left out after an already less-than-favourable relationship with Benitez worsened.