Gourcuff, who is on loan to les Girondins from AC Milan this season, has enjoyed a meteoric rise since his switch to the south west last summer, shining for both club and country.

Bixente Lizarazu had already drawn parallels between the 22-year-old and 'Zizou,' and now Blanc - whose side face a trip to Nice on Saturday - has echoed his ex-international team-mate's thoughts.

"What he's achieving at the moment deserves to be recognised... it confirms the talent I saw in him and that certain poeple had forgotten. I saw him when he was very young at Rennes and I really liked his technical abilities even then," said Blanc, who has picked Gourcuff for all nine of his side's Ligue 1 encounters so far.

"A brilliant individual player is great, but if the player is kept under wraps you need to find other solutions, whereas with Yoann, he brings the other players into the game. I played alongside a player like that: Zidane."

Marked man

Blanc played with the former Real Madrid legend in the France sides that won both the World Cup in 1998 and Euro 2000. While his global notoriety is still far from the stratospheric levels enjoyed by the now retired playmaker, Blanc warned that Gourcuff's performances on the pitch mean he - like Zidane in his time - will become a marked man in every sense.

"Now, the hardest part is about to begin for him," warned the former Napoli, Marseille, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Manchester United defender. "He's being very closely watched. Clubs have taken notice of what he's doing. He's already experienced this before and his time at Milan has helped.

"For two years, he lived day in, day out with world class players. He saw how they carried themselves in the face of all sorts of situations... on the pitch and off. He will benefit from that, and he's also very mature for his age."