Paris Saint-Germain coach Laurent Blanc has responded to those questioning his use of star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic following the player's recent problems with injury and form.
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Ibrahimovic, 32, will miss the French champions' league game at Caen on Wednesday with a heel injury, a problem which meant he only played last weekend's Ligue 1 encounter against Lyon with the aid of pain-killing injections.
Several media outlets have expressed the view that Blanc should have taken off his captain during the 1-1 draw, the third successive competitive outing in which Ibrahimovic had failed to find the back of the net.
"He's a major player," Blanc told a news conference. "You don't take off that kind of player. He's an extraordinary competitor."
Blanc, who did bring off the Swede 18 minutes from time after he had scored a hat trick in the 5-0 defeat of Saint-Etienne earlier this season, insisted he does not always play last season's top scorer from start to finish.
"I do sometimes take him off, because he's going to be 33," he said. "I allow myself to substitute him, because I tell myself the season is long. I take him off when the match is won to protect him. You may remember that his injury last season was a problem for us."
Ibrahimovic damaged a thigh muscle in PSG's Champions League quarterfinal first-leg win over Chelsea last season, meaning he missed the return fixture at Stamford Bridge where the Premier League side went through on away goals.
Meanhwile, ex-PSG forward Jeremy Menez has hit out at his former club, saying it is "perhaps better to be a foreigner" and use social media to your benefit to succeed with the French champions.
Menez, 27, returned to the club he supported as boy from Roma in summer 2011, and initially flourished under Carlo Ancelotti, providing seven goals and 12 assists in his first season.
However, both his return and his playing time subsequently diminished, and he contributed just two goals and made only seven starts in PSG's Ligue 1 title defence under Blanc last season.
Having left the Parc des Princes when his contract expired this summer, Menez moved to AC Milan, where he has made a sparkling start to the Serie A campaign.
He told France Football those who claimed he had been a flop in the French capital where wrong, particularly when his transfer fee was compared with that of Brazilian Lucas, brought in from Sao Paulo for 40 million euros.
"You have to look at the numbers and the statistics. PSG bought me for eight million euros from Roma in summer 2011. I did rather well in the first two seasons, less so the last one, but I still made decisive contributions. When you compare me to others, I wasn't too bad in terms of quality or price, was I? Lucas has been there for two years, and he's scored three goals," said Menez of the Brazil international, who has in fact scored six league goals and provided 13 top-flight assists to date, before also launching a thinly-veiled attack on Lucas' social media activities.
"Today, it's perhaps better to a foreigner at PSG and, above all, take care to put yourself across well. I'm French and Parisian. I don't have a Twitter account, nor Instagram to send messages or beautiful photos. I don't put on a show via social media. I didn't say: 'Vive Paris! Allez Paris!' to make myself look good. I am not like that. But that doesn't mean I didn't love my club, far from it. Simply, I'm not one to put on a show. A lot of players do that so that they're well-liked."
After scoring twice in Milan's recent 5-4 defeat of Parma, Menez had claimed "no one believed in me at PSG last season", and again criticised Blanc, blaming the PSG boss for his poor final campaign at the club by playing him out of position.
"Laurent Blanc mostly put me out wide, either at PSG or when he was the French national team coach," he said. "I always accepted that, but it worked against me. Ancelotti knew where to play me. There were no problems. The Milan staff have re-given me that freedom in attack, that which I also had a little bit at PSG. When he arrived in Paris, Ancelotti played me in attack. He quickly gave me a defined role. That's where you could see the difference. With him, I only played on the flank to help out. My true position is in the middle."
Blanc responded at a news conference: "It's very easy to speak to the papers. Jeremy should speak about the project at AC Milan rather than his former club. That's very easy to do, but he does what he wants. I won't say any more about it."