SHARE

Lille are now supposed to be wowing Ligue 1, leading to football fans (big effort not to use the word hipsters) around Europe getting themselves the club’s shirt.

Marcelo Bielsa was given most of what he wanted to take over at Lille. It would always be impossible to give Bielsa everything, as he probably imagines up a new absolutely essential component every couple of days.

Unfortunately it’s not worked yet and Lille find themselves 16th in Ligue 1, with 6 points after 8 games. From here things could completely go one way or another, calmness isn’t likely. Bielsa and Lille could go on a march up the league, and do all that impressing which was half expected, or they could completely collapse and Bielsa storm out of Lille muttering things about not being allowed a chance of success.

What has this got to do with Southampton? Well, Lille are being presented as competition for Paco Alcacer, over a mash-up of French and Spanish reports.

Southampton were linked with Alcacer last week, which led to several conflicting claims in Spain, one of which was quite unkind to the Saints.

Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo said Alcacer ‘would only leave Barca in winter for a solid project and the offer that appeared yesterday from Southampton would not be the one to convince him’.

Southampton isn’t a ‘‘irresistible temptation’, it was noted.

Well, it’s probably a more tempting proposition than Lille right now.