Blanc frustrated by Verratti leaks

Paris Saint-Germain head coach Laurent Blanc voiced his frustration at social media leaks that forced the club to reveal news of Marco Verratti’s groin surgery sooner than they had intended.

Last week, Blanc told a news conference PSG were hopeful Verratti would not need to go under the knife to treat the recurring issue, only for PSG to confirm two hours later that the Italy midfielder will need an operation that rules him out of Euro 2016.

Blanc stated that PSG were waiting to make an announcement on the decision out of respect for the Italian Football Federation, but the club had to act after rumours gathered pace on social media.

“You know, you always want to avoid a surgery. About the communication issue, yes we planned to tell it a bit later, but now with social media, you can’t keep any information,” he said ahead of Wednesday’s Ligue 1 contest against Bordeaux. 

“That’s what I was telling to our two Italian friends [journalists], we decided to tell it later, because we respect the Italian Federation and we wanted to talk with them about the decision we took for Marco.

“But when the information leaks, it goes crazy, and two hours later [it is] on social media, you know communication now is very complicated. You know it very well, it’s very hard to keep something secret. 

“It wasn’t even a secret, we wanted to be straight with the Italian Federation.”

Blanc also confirmed that striker Edinson Cavani, who scored a hat-trick in Saturday’s 4-0 win against Ajaccio, is likely to miss out with a calf injury sustained as a result of a “dirty trick” in that fixture.

And the former France coach also spoke of his disappointment that PSG did not play at least three more matches in a hectic season, in reference to their failure in the Champions League quarter-finals.

He added: “I wish the season was even longer. We will do 60 games, I wish we could make 63 one day.”