Antoine Griezmann admits frustration at Didier Deschamps’ France system after Ukraine draw

Les Blues were held to a 1-1 draw at the Stade de France

France forward Antoine Griezmann (AFP via Getty Images)

Antoine Griezmann has voiced his disappointment following France’s draw with Ukraine in Wednesday night’s World Cup qualifying opener.

The Barcelona forward admitted that Didier Deschamps’ switch from a 4-3-2-1 to a 4-4-2 led to some issues in the final third.

Griezmann did score the game’s opening goal, though, and insisted France will improve after a slow start to their World Cup 2022 campaign.

“We needed maybe more offensive players who are able to go one-v-one on the sidelines,” he told TF1.

“We will learn to play in a system like that and try to start winning again. We wanted to win but we didn’t play a great game. We’re going to look at it all and try to improve.”

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Deschamps, too, acknowledged the need for more “precision and movement”, despite fielding a France team that included the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Kingsley Coman, Olivier Giroud and Griezmann.

“We should have secured the win in the first half, we had the opportunities. It was more difficult in the second half,” said Les Blues’ manager.

“The goal that we conceded was avoidable, we pushed to the end. We are obviously disappointed, it would have been ideal to win.

“The result proves that Ukraine is a good team. We lacked energy in the second half. We can do better. It is not necessarily a match where we were going to create a lot of chances. We needed more precision and movement.”

France are next in action against Kazakhstan on Sunday, before travelling to Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday for the final game of the international break.