With France placed in Group D against Ukraine, Finland, Kazakhstan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, many expect Les Bleus to sail through with flying colours but things haven’t started that way. Instead, in their opening World Cup qualifier against Ukraine, the 2018 World Cup winners were held to a shock 1-1 draw despite taking the lead early in the first half.

But with head coach Didier Deschamps playing a new formation instead of their usual 4-2-3-1, it saw the French side struggle in the second half and they failed to find the second goal. It saw Antoine Griezmann admit that the team needed “more offensive players” to make the change in formation work against Ukraine. He further added that Les Bleus need to improve and to do that, they’re “going to look at it all” and figure out a way forward.

Didier Deschamps, on the other hand, had a lot to say about the performances of the players that he put out on the night and asserted that they should have won the game in the first half. The France head coach further added that the result and the performance proves that “Ukraine is a good team” but his side “lacked energy in the second half”.

"We should have secured the win in the first half, we had the opportunities. It was more difficult in the second half. The goal that we conceded was avoidable, we pushed to the end. We are obviously disappointed, it would have been ideal to win,” Deschamps said, reported TF1.

"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."