France manager Didier Deschamps has fired a cheeky dig at Frank Lampard after naming N'Golo Kante in his latest squad.
The Frenchman was left out of the national team set-up for their last batch of matches after the Chelsea boss requested for Kante to remain at Stamford Bridge having recently returned from injury.
However, Deschamps has now questioned whether he should ask Lampard to give Olivier Giroud more playing time in return for his request over Kante.
Kante returned to the Blues team for their 2-1 defeat against Liverpool having missed a month's worth of action.
He then absent for Chelsea's next two matches with a recurrence of a hamstring complaint, before completing 90 minutes in the 2-1 Champions League win at Lille on Wednesday night.
Speaking after his side's 2-0 win over Brighton last weekend, Lampard said: "My feeling is that he has played a lot and that's because he has been so successful and so important to the teams he has been in. At the minute, he has injuries.
"This little niggle he had is a small, small injury. We just need to get it right. We are just careful and it is my duty to work with him. The medical team are working so hard with him."
Despite lacking a little bit of match sharpness, Deschamps has this time included Kante in his latest France squad to face Iceland and Turkey next week.
The World Cup-winning coach issued a little dig at Lampard in his press conference today over Giroud's lack of playing time as an exchange for leaving Kante out of his last squad.
"Lampard had asked me not to pick Kante at the last break," Deschamps told a press conference on Thursday.
"If that's still the way I'm going to call him later to tell him it would be nice if you play Olivier Giroud a little bit!"
The 33-year-old is still France's first-choice striker but hasn't started for Chelsea since their 1-1 draw with Leicester City in August.
