Kear also has the former French captain, Didier Cabestany, back after his wife’s premature delivery of a son forced him to miss last weekend’s match.St Germain have also had to negotiate the release of three of their young French players from the army, after they were called up last week for national service. “When you think of having a Super League club in Paris or one in Workington, it’s no contest.”They might not agree with that assessment on the Cumbrian coast, but Paris can take an enormous amount of pressure off their shoulders by winning today. “He is also a very good communicator, who will help with our organisation.”Organisation is what John Kear has been brought in to provide for Paris. The driving force behind the British Academy competition for the country’s best young players, he has been loaned to the French in the clearest demonstration yet that Super League desperately wants them to survive in the top flight.”I know that the league wants us to come through, and that puts a bit of extra responsibility on me,” Kear admitted. Their coach, Ross O’Reilly, refuses to look on the dark side: “We aren’t even thinking about losing,” he insisted. “In fact, with five out of our next six games at home, we can turn our season around this weekend. The spirit has been growing steadily at this club over the past few weeks and with the crowd behind us I’m convinced we can do it.”O’Reilly is able to draft in a newcomer to attempt to solve his problems at full-back, now that a work permit has arrived forButch Fatnowna.

“He is a specialist in the position who has played at the highest level in the game,” O’Reilly said of the former Brisbane and Penrith full-back. The two bottom clubs play each other in a match that could send either of them on the way out of the top division. Although there remains a suspicion that should Paris finish in 12th place the goalposts will be moved, at present the position is clear-cut: whoever is bottom on 26 August faces the drop.
If Workington lose this evening, it is likely to be them They will be four points adrift and as good as down. Along with that, the whole question of cards and suspensions will need review.As Glenn Hoddle is recognising, however, the future is with us already After the end, a new beginning.. In addition, only England and Germany entered the spirit of the euphemistically entitled golden goal rule.

The conviction here remains that the American-style shoot-out – a player given seven seconds to advance from 35 yards out on a goalkeeper allowed to move – projects more skill. Perhaps the FA could ask Don Howe to keep the seat warm.Another FA appointment will be made this week with Sir Bert Millichip due to be replaced as chairman on Thursday. His successor – one from David Richards, Geoff Thompson, Sir David Hill-Wood and Keith Wiseman – may well have a World Cup bid to contest with the Germans for 2006.By then, the game’s authorities may have rectified the flaws of a tournament rescued by an English enthusiasm that was almost dampened in places by inflated ticket prices. An Anglophile, Houllier has twice turned down the post because he wants to be part of his country’s World Cup two years hence but after that he would be willing.

And there remains an ideal candidate for the technical director’s post in another Frenchman, Gerard Houllier. He would like as technical director Arsene Wenger, his coach at Monaco.While some of the aims may be laudable, other fussy measures may not suit English players – Hoddle never did quite wean his Chelsea boys off the sausages in the canteen. And with David Platt possibly nearing the end of his international career, a personal preference would be for another Villa player, Mark Draper, to be tried in midfield.It is clear that Hoddle intends to implement other Germanic ideas such as a code of conduct and technical back-up in dieting and conditioning. With Stuart Pearce now retired from the national team and Graeme Le Saux still a long way from match fitness, Southgate’s Villa team-mate Alan Wright may be a replacement on the left. For example, three at the back for the English has often simply meant a belt-and-braces trio of big central defenders. Wing-backs can just form a back five.At Chelsea, Hoddle sought more to develop the system along German lines of two markers and a free player with attacking potential, joined by wide players who spring forward. Due to the process of buying and building, his team often looked less sophisticated than their coach and Ruud Gullit no longer the mobile libero that Matthias Sammer is.Who in England can emulate Sammer? Given that Venables’s players proved themselves rather more versatile than expected, perhaps it will be Gareth Southgate, probably the most adaptable of them all.