Jonathan Liew

I think Philippe's right in a lot of ways.

I think it was a few months ago when they played against Colombia and Deschamps gets asked about bolstering the midfield and he sort of makes a joke about, oh, I'm an attacking coach now.

I've been holding them back long enough, which is nice, but it's also the sort of thing coaches start to say when, well, actually they've got one eye on their legacy.

There's a sort of...

Is it hard to say there's like a Southgate 2024 vibe to all this?

Obviously, we know Day Shop is leaving after this tournament.

We know Zidane is coming in.

And we know that there is a huge amount of pressure domestically for Day Shop to get the most out of this incredible wealth of attacking talent.

I think we got a taste of what that might be like.

And this front four that...

people assume is going to be the first choice front four, Alisse, Dembélé, Douay and Mbappe.

They've only actually started one game together before, which was the Nations League semi-final against Spain last summer.

And if you remember what happened then, they were 4-0 down.

They were absolutely overrun.

And obviously, a lot of water under the bridge since then.

But I think it just underlines the delicacy of that balance.

The delicacy that Deschamps actually has struck so well in previous tournaments in providing that firm platform.

And now we're in this place where the questions are, how much structure do they actually need?

How much freedom should they be given?

I think the talent in that squad gets them to quarterfinals, semifinals without too much pressure.