Down and out in Paris

THINGS just go from bad to worse for Paul Le Guen. Eighteen months after turning his back on a tumultuous failure with Rangers, the beleaguered Frenchman is mired in a relegation battle with Paris Saint-Germain.

And while Walter Smith primes Rangers for a historic quadruple, his predecessor in Glasgow is preparing himself for the unwanted tag of the first manager ever to take PSG down into France's second division.
Should PSG – 18th of Ligue 1's 20 clubs ahead of last night's game with Saint-Etienne – go down, Le Guen will probably find himself out of a job. And after two straight managerial nightmares, his reputation will be in tatters. A new club might be hard to come by. How times have changed for the man dubbed 'the new Arsene Wenger' after leading Lyon to three consecutive French league titles.

Having steered PSG clear of the drop last season, Le Guen was expected to lead the club where he made his name as a player on a charge up the table this time round. As a former PSG captain, he had the fans in his pocket and most observers in France still considered the Rangers fiasco a blip. Now, they are no longer sure. Le Guen's season can be boiled down to three factors: dismal dealings in the transfer market; discomfort with senior players leading to strange team selections and listless performances; and poor communication, both internal and external, leaving just about everyone wondering what the hell's going on. Sound familiar?

The problems began last summer, when Le Guen failed to bring in the players he had targeted. He was reported to have had euro15m to spend, but ended up forking out only a net euro3.5m. His efforts to attract France internationals Sidney Govou and Anthony Reveillere from Lyon failed, mainly because PSG's salaries these days can't compete. Claude Makelele was seriously tempted to move to the French capital, where he has a restaurant and much of his family, and would have been the ideal player to boss the team on the field. But the France veteran earns a fortune at Chelsea and PSG weren't prepared to pay that type of money.

Le Guen, perhaps too attached to players he's already had under his wing, also wanted Sylvain Wiltord but didn't get him.

Instead, PSG fans saw central defenders Zoumana Camara and Gregory Bourillon pitch up from St. Etienne and Rennes respectively, and a Brazilian right-back, Ceara. Oh, and Didier Digard, a defensive midfielder from second division side Le Havre . There were not many gasps of excitement or lips being licked in anticipation in the stands at the Parc des Princes. In January, PSG signed two more Brazilians whom Le Guen didn't seem to have requested, and neither of them has looked any good. Bright young forward Yoann Gouffran of Caen had agreed a January switch to PSG only to change his mind when he saw how badly the club was doing. And when a player prefers Caen to Paris, you know something has gone seriously wrong. For a club that has won a European Cup-Winners' Cup, two French league titles, seven French Cups and three League Cups, PSG have gone seriously out of fashion.

Another source of concern for Le Guen has been his relationship with senior players. Right from last summer, the manager made it clear he wanted rid of the big wage earners like Colombian centre-half Mario Yepes and ageing captain, but legendary goal-scorer, Pauleta. They were both left out early on, with fans' favourite Pauleta reduced to bit-part player and occasional substitute. Le Guen's problem with Pauleta was strikingly similar to the one he had at Rangers with Kris Boyd. Portuguese striker Pauleta rarely beats a man, can't dribble and these days lacks pace. He's not the fluid, all-round type of central attacker Le Guen prefers. And yet, just like Boyd, Pauleta has the knack of putting the ball in the net. And the crowd at the Parc des Princes, like crowds the world over, loves a goal-scorer.

Whatever PSG's shortcomings in the transfer market, fans will be fans, and optimism held sway at the start of the season. Especially with a calendar that promised easy-pickings early on, with home games against Sochaux, Lorient and Lille and trips to Lens and Metz – France's version of Derby County. Those five games, though, yielded four drab draws and a crushing 1-3 home defeat to Lorient. Things would not get much better, Championship-wise. PSG didn't win a home league game until January 13! Le Guen tried all sorts of things to get a reaction from his under-performing players. None of them worked. The most controversial was his decision to all of a sudden pick five youngsters, all graduates from PSG's under-performing youth academy, for the game away to Valenciennes in October. Even more surprisingly, Le Guen named 17-year-old defender Mamadou Sakho, making his first-team debut, as his captain for the day! The French media had a field day and the fans forums are still debating the rights and wrongs today. The long and short of it is that although PSG got a useful 0-0 draw on the day, none of the youngsters has gone on to pin down a regular first-team spot. Le Guen was forced to call upon the experience of the towering Yepes when Bourillon was injured and Pauleta's recall has proved crucial, the 35-year-old still banging in more goals than anyone else at the club.

Pauleta, the club captain, has refused to criticise Le Guen publicly but he has admitted that the manager doesn't talk to him beyond the minimum service and never explains his choices. Other players have suffered from Le Guen's attitude to communication and the poor results also affected player confidence. Goalkeeper Mickael Landreau, one of the most consistent performers in recent years, has had his worst season ever. Le Guen's dry wit and intelligent analysis on French TV during his 12-month sabbatical after Lyon won him many admirers. He clearly knows how to communicate, which is why so many are perplexed by his hermetic attitude to the media these days. Le Guen's unwillingness to speak freely, to speak out – perhaps a Brittany trait - has backfired on him. He now has a reputation as a surly boss.

And yet there have been a couple of silver linings during this disastrous season for PSG. Favoured by draws which meant they never had to face another top-flight club, PSG are through to the final of the French Cup (where they'll meet Lyon). And Le Guen already has one trophy under his belt after PSG carried off the League Cup with a 2-1 final victory over Lens thanks to a controversial last-minute penalty. However, in typical PSG fashion, even that success was marred by scandal. An offensive banner unfurled by their fans during the game offended the nation and became the lead story on the national news.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to leave the stadium if the banner was not removed immediately.

The League Cup victory failed to spark an upturn in the team's league form and a recent 3-0 reverse at modest Caen proved too much for some of PSG's more virulent supporters. Left-back Sylvain Armand's Porsche was attacked at the Camp des Loges training-centre and messages daubed on the walls included 'PSG in Ligue 2 = Riots', and, 'If you go down, we'll shoot you down'.

Significantly, the fans have now run out of patience with the manager. 'Le Guen – F**k Off Elsewhere' was one of the slogans. Since then, we've seen club chairman Alain Cayzac resign with just four games remaining and while Le Guen remains, PSG are now teetering on the brink of a historic relegation. Their final match of the season is away to Sochaux next weekend. It's the kind of game PSG would have looked forward to in the early Nineties, when Le Guen was a player. Right now, though, it seems as scary as hell to PSG fans, who haven't seen their team record an away league victory since mid-December. Le Guen's fate will hang on it.