West Ham United playmaker Dimitri Payet has hit out at France coach Didier Deschamps after he was left out of the national squad at the start of this month.
Payet, 28, has enjoyed an excellent start to his career in England since moving to West Ham in a big-money deal from Marseille in the summer but was not included in the France squad for the friendly matches away to Portugal and at home to Serbia during the recent international break.
"I get the impression that it's harder for some players than others. Honestly I struggle to understand what he really expects from me," Payet told Canal Football Club on Canal Plus on Sunday night.
Deschamps had said he expected "better and more" from Payet, but the former Nantes, Lille and Saint-Etienne man replied: "I have been giving my very best for more than a year and I am maybe in the best form of my career so I don't understand what more people can expect from me, even if we can always do better."
Payet, who hails from the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, was the leading assist provider in Ligue 1 last season with Marseille. He won the most recent of his 15 caps for Les Bleus in the 1-0 friendly defeat in Albania in June.