France coach backs Lloris

France coach Didier Deschamps is confident Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris will be available for Friday’s World Cup play-off first leg against Ukraine.

Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas sparked controversy when he allowed Lloris to remain on the field after being knocked out in a collision with Romelu Lukaku during the goalless draw with Everton on November 3. The 26-year-old subsequently sat out the Europa League win over Sheriff Tiraspol and Sunday’s 1-0 Premier League defeat to Newcastle, although Villas-Boas expects him to feature for his country.

And Deschamps declared yesterday: “He is doing well, very well. He had a specific training programme on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with Tottenham. The club and their coach, Andre Villas-Boas, took the decision not to let him play yesterday.

“Today, he will train separately with [goalkeeper coach] Franck Raviot because he was not with us yesterday. Tomorrow, he will participate normally in the session.”

Lloris missed the Newcastle game after failing to come through Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) — a computerised concussion evaluation system.

Villas-Boas said afterwards that: “Probably had the game been on Monday, he would have played.”

And Deschamps agreed: “As his coach said, he would have been able to play today. There are no worries with Hugo. They did what they felt was right based on what happened to him a week ago.”