Irish manager Brian Kerr admits he is relatively unconcerned about the end of the international exiles of French trio Zinedine Zidane, Claude Makelele and Lilian Thuram – and even suggested that it could breed some discontent within Raymond Domenech’s squad.
Domenech has succeeded in getting the three stars to return to the cause for the final four World Cup qualifiers.
France’s prospects of sneaking into the single automatic promotion spot have been boosted by their renewed availability – but Kerr insists he is not overly concerned.
He said: "You could look at it as maybe a little bit of panic on their part but I think we have all felt that France have the ability whether it was with five games to go or four games to go to win every match.
"I think they have used maybe 29 or 30 players already in the six games. Makelele is the only one of these three who has played so if they use the three they will be up to 32. There is not a lot of consistency about that.
"They are very good players and I am sure they will improve their team. They will definitely improve their squad and add a huge amount of experience to it.
"They should make them better but I am sure there will be a lot of other players sitting around saying ’is it my place they are going to take’ having waited for a few years to get in there. How will they feel about these guys coming back?”
Good response from Kerr, no doubt the return of ZZ is a psychological boost but he has a good point, what about the players that are going to be moved aside to make way....wont be too happy.
Did anyone see, RTE have an ad out about the game already, giving me the jitters about the game and we're still a month away!
09/08/2005, 10:53 AM
tetsujin1979
No real shock here, no manager is going to talk up the opposition, this is the closest I've seen to "mind games" from Kerr thus far.
