Nabil Fekir denies knee problem ended transfer plans with Liverpool

Nabil Fekir has rejected claims of a long-standing knee problem after his move from Lyon to Liverpool was aborted.

The 24-year-old attacking midfielder appeared set to move to Anfield, only for OL to call off negotiations prior to the World Cup.

Fekir faced the media on Tuesday, denying reports of a chronic problem after a serious knee injury in 2015 and insisting his focus was on France's World Cup campaign.

"My knee is great. Honestly, I feel like before my injury," Fekir told a media conference, according to lequipe.fr.

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Fekir was also questioned about the reported presence of Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas in Russia.

He added: "I am with the France team, I am happy to be here. I'm not here to talk about my personal situation. We'll see later."

Les Bleus won their opening game, 2-1 against Australia and play Peru in Ekaterinburg on Thursday.

Raphael Varane was quick to accentuate the positive after some media criticism of Les Bleus' performance against the Socceroos, appearing to take exception to a question about the role of Manchester United's Paul Pogba.

"A lot of negative is said, it's a reality," Real Madrid defender Varane said.

"We all seek to retain the positive. Often, we talk about more negative things.

"But he is not resentful, he remains positive anyway.

"If you (the media) could be a little more positive, it would be cool."

Varane acknowledged France must improve, but reminded his audience that Les Bleus won, while Argentina, Germany and Brazil did not.

"We will have to increase in intensity," he added.

"We also saw good things. It is not easy to enter this competition.

"We saw that other teams announced as favourites did not win, or lost. We won."