Sagnol not fooled by Faroe romp

FRANCE defender Willy Sagnol has played down the significance of his side’s 3-0 victory over the Faroe Islands by claiming it was the easiest of their four remaining qualifiers.

France are now joint top of Group Four along with Switzerland and the Republic of Ireland after two goals from Djibril Cisse and a Suni Olsen own-goalgave the hosts victory at the Stade Felix Bollaert on Saturday.

Bayern Munich’s Sagnol insisted there was no pride to take from defeating the Faroes as they were the weakest team in the group.

“It is true that the team is playing better but we are far from our best,” he said. “The objective is to qualify, we will talk about the performance and the manner later. It’s good, we got all three points, we are at the top of the group but frankly, we won the easiest of all the matches.”

Sagnol also believes France’s defence will need to improve on Wednesday.

He added: “We will have to be more efficient in defence and be faster than the Irish if we are to get a good result there.”

Forward Florent Malouda was more upbeat about his side’s performance, although he is aware of Ireland’s strengths, especially as the Irish did not play on Saturday.

“We did not fall into a trap against the Faroe Islands, we respected them,” said Malouda. “Considering the number of opportunities we created ourselves we can say that we are in good shape technically. It confirms what we showed against the Ivory Coast (a 3-0 win in a friendly last month).

“We could have been more efficient up front but we logically relaxed our efforts because we were two goals up.

“We also wanted to save ourselves considering that Ireland did not play this week and we will have to be in top form against them.

“We made the Faroe Islands run a lot and if we do the same in Dublin, things could go well. However the physical challenge will not be comparable. They have rested more than us and we must concentrate on recuperation for that match which will certainly be the key to our qualification.”

After Dublin, France will travel to Switzerland on October 8, before ending their qualification campaign at the Stade de France against Cyprus on October 12.