Deschamps plays down Mbappé award comments

France boss Didier Deschamps on Tuesday refused to become entangled in the fall-out of Kylian Mbappé's comments during an award ceremony in Paris.

After hoisting a trophy anointing him as the French top flight's best player, Mbappé, 20, said he was looking forward to more responsibility in the coming year either at his current club Paris Saint-Germain or elsewhere.

The mysterious declaration was interpreted as a come-an-get-me plea to Europe's leading clubs.

On Tuesday, PSG declared their shared history with the player who cost 180 million euros from Monaco.

And Deschamps, who coached Mbappé to a World Cup winner's medal in Russia in 2018, said he was unconcerned by the striker's comments.

"He has responsibilties in the national team and everyone can make what they want of his comments from Sunday," said Deschamps. "All I will say is that he is an extremely important player for the national team and he will do everything to remain that way."

Accolade
Mbappé was handed the Ligue 1 player of the year gong after hitting 32 goals for PSG during their title winning season.

But the year will be deemed a failure by the clubs Qatari owners. Under new coach Thomas Tuchel, they failed to emulate the success of his predecessor Unai Emery who steered the side to a domestic treble of League Cup and Coupe de France. And they were eliminated for the third successive season in the last 16 of the Champions League.

While Mbappé already boasts 30 caps just out of his teens, Clement Lenglet, Leo Dubois and Mike Maignan were called up by Deschamps to the senior squad for the first time as the side prepares for Euro 2020 qualifiers against Turkey and Andorra in June.

Olivier Giroud was also named in the squad on the day that his club Chelsea announced that he had agreed to stay at Stamford Bridge until the end of the 2020 season.