Santini waits for Wiltord

France coach Jacques Santini has refused to rule out Sylvain Wiltord from his Euro 2004 squad but admits he is a major concern.

The Arsenal striker has been plagued by a recurrent ankle injury during the last five months and has not played for Les Bleus since France’s 3-0 thrashing of Germany in November last year.

And despite being far from short of attacking options, Santini is worried about the former Bordeaux forward’s fitness.

“Sylvain is definitely our main concern,” Santini said. “But he is now better and should resume training with the reserve team soon. We will keep in touch with him and his club about it.

“Since September we are following the players and their individual cases.

“There are very important players to the team and he is one of them.

“The most important thing for Sylvain is that he knows what he is suffering from and that he is almost cured from it.”

Wiltord should be back into international action for Les Bleus’ final three friendlies before Euro 2004 – with Brazil (on May 20), Andorra (May 28) and Ukraine (June 6).

Santini’s side, who will be defending their European Championship crown this summer, drew 0-0 with Holland on Wednesday but are likely to start favourites for the tournament in Portugal.