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World Cup 2010: Nicolas Anelka is not the centre forward France need – Jean-Pierre Papin
'JPP' is not convinced that les Bleus' present system will work...
By Robin Bairner
Papin, who knows a great deal about finding the net having excelled for Milan and Olympique de Marseille amongst others during an illustrious playing career, believes Anelka’s attributes don’t lend him to playing in such a role.
“I'm not sure that it was a good thing for the France team to go to a 4-3-3 just before the competition,” the former Strasbourg manager mused to the Dauphine Libere regarding Domenech’s sudden shift away from a 4-2-3-1 formation in the pre-tournament warm-ups.
“Most players are not accustomed to the system.
“Nicolas Anelka is not a striker. You need a player who is astute in front of goal. I would play Djibril Cisse or even Andre-Pierre Gignac.
“Gignac has the same profile on the field as I had, but he has a right foot!”
It is anticipated that France will stick by the system, and the personnel, who lost 1-0 to China seven days ago when they face Uruguay on Saturday. Domenech's men have a 69.3 per cent chance of progressing to the knockout rounds of the World Cup, according to Castrol Football, and a win in their opener would go some way to ensuring they achieve that aim.
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"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.
"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."
Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
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