Manchester United legend Gary Neville has criticised Everton for selling left-back Lucas Digne to Aston Villa.

The France international fell out with former boss Rafa Benitez and shortly left Goodison Park when the January transfer window opened.

Villa won the race for his signature ahead of Chelsea, West Ham and cash-rich Newcastle United and the full-back has made an instant impact under Steven Gerrard.

Digne made his debut for Villa in the 2-2 draw with Man United over two weeks ago, before returning to Merseyside as Gerrard's team beat Everton 1-0 on Saturday.

And Neville claims that his impressive performance for Villa added 'salt in the wound' for Everton, who were managerless on the day after sacking Benitez in the lead up to the game.

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"This is not something new but the idea that they sold Digne a couple of days before sacking the manager. Again, it was just a really odd decision," he said on the Gary Neville Podcast.

“If you’re going to sack the manager of a football club, you keep the players there until you’ve sacked him. At least to let your new manager come in and basically make his own decision.

“That was an obscure decision which tells you that the club - it’s obvious that the club's not functioning well behind the scenes - but that is just a real huge demonstration of it.

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“That they’re not connected together, the dots aren’t joined up. That would be a problem generally because that just means that there isn’t the thread from the top that’s needed to create a good football structure and a good football project.

“I don’t know where they go from here now, obviously yesterday they lose, a bad one for them.

"You've got Steven Gerrard on the bench, you've got Coutinho on the pitch, Digne on the pitch and some crowd behaviour.

"So you've got salt in the wound as well."