'Out of the trip to LCFC' - Gregg Evans drops morning AVFC team news, fresh blow for Gerrard

Steven Gerrard will be without four of his Aston Villa players for the trip to Leicester City, The Athletic’s Gregg Evans reports. 

Lucas Digne, Bertrand Traore, Kortney Hause and Morgan Sanson have all been ruled out of the clash with the Foxes.

Villa travel to The King Power Stadium looking to end a run of four consecutive Premier League defeats that has seen them slip to 15th place in the table.

Gerrard’s predecessor Dean Smith was actually sacked by Villa after a sequence of five straight losses in the autumn.

They didn’t play last weekend after their clash with Liverpool was postponed because of the Reds’ FA Cup semifinal commitments. Gerrard will hope that the extended break has benefitted his squad.

Their hosts are six places above them in the table, but might just have one eye on their Europa Conference League semifinal clash with AS Roma on Thursday night.

Evans tweeted on Friday morning that Traore would miss the match with a groin injury, with Kortney Hause and Morgan Sanson also ‘unavailable’ and ‘out of the trip to LCFC’.

The journalist added that Digne has ‘an outside chance’ of returning for the ‘final games of the season’ after breaking his collarbone last time out against Tottenham Hotspur.

Immediately after the meeting with Spurs, Gerrard expressed his fear that Digne would be out for the rest of the season.

From that point of view, it’s perhaps a positive that he could still play a part for the Villans in the coming weeks.

As for the other absentees, Hause hasn’t made the matchday squad since the clash with Southampton at the start of March and hasn’t played a Premier League minute since 22 January.

But Traore has provided Gerrard with an option off the bench, having most recently played the last 20