France head coach Zinedine Zidane has been fulsome in his praise of Man City star Rayan Cherki.

Zidane was the most elegant and technically gifted player of his era, and when asked if he would have liked to have played alongside Cherki, he replied:

“Yes, well yes [I would have liked to play with him], he’s a proper footballer. But it’s not just that [his technical ability] – everyone knows [about] that. What interests me is what he’s capable of doing without the ball.”

“He’s capable of receiving the ball between the lines; he makes incredible passes. Two or three times, when he plays vertically, it can be immediately effective.”

How has Cherki been performing under Zidane?

The 23-year-old started Zidane’s first game in charge on Friday night. He played the first 78 minutes of the 1-0 win over Turkey before he was replaced by Eduardo Camavinga.

Cherki was deployed in a slightly deeper role, and Zidane spoke after the game to compliment the player on his performance both with and without the ball.

It is therefore likely that the midfielder will be deployed in a similar position when France take on Belgium in their second Nations League fixture on Monday evening.

How many Man City players are on international duty?

20 members of the squad have been called up in total (including Cherki). Rayan Ait-Nouri (Algeria), Geronimo Rulli, Enzo Fernandez (Argentina), Vitor Reis (Brazil), Mateo Kovacic, Josko Gvardiol (Croatia), Marc Guehi, Nico O’Reilly, Elliot Anderson (England), Gianluigi Donnarumma (Italy), Ayyoub Bouaddi (Morocco), Erling Haaland (Norway), Ruben Dias (Portugal), Iliman Ndiaye (Senegal) and Abdukodir Khusanov (Uzbekistan) are with their national teams.

Rico Lewis (England Under-21), Kaden Braithwaite, Ryan McAidoo (England Under-19) and Floyd Samba (Germany Under-19) are playing youth internationals.

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