Montpellier plan for Ibrahimovic

30 July 2012 05:14

Montpellier coach Rene Girard admits stopping PSG striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic from running riot this season will not be easy.

Ominously for the capital club's rivals, their latest big-money signing needed just three minutes to register his first goal for PSG in Saturday's friendly clash with DC United.

Girard, though, believes Ibrahimovic's signing is a positive thing for French football as a whole and is actually looking forward to coming up with a way of nullifying the forward.

"It's always good to have star players in our league, for the fans and the players," the 58-year-old told reporters at a press conference on Saturday.

"Particularly for the players it's going to be a good challenge for them to try to stop a top class player like Zlatan.

"It's not going to be easy. It's up to us to try to find the solutions and ingredients to make sure that he doesn't make a difference on his own.

"Paris Saint-Germain also have a lot of very good players so it's not just him. It's going to be interesting to see Ibrahimovic up close and it's going to be a good challenge for us trying to stop him."

PSG reportedly paid AC Milan 23 million euros for Ibrahimovic, who was top scorer in Serie A last season with 28 goals in 32 matches.