When the less-than-fickle footballing fates threw together Laurent Blanc and Bordeaux, a fevered rush of excitement must have raced through sports newsrooms around France at the prospect of the host of oven-ready puns that appointment spawned.

'Bordeaux' is, traditionally, synonymous with red wine, while Blanc - for the less linguistically gifted - means 'white,' and the sports press have - much to their credit - run through the gambit of the glaringly obvious, bar the French equivalent of 'Blanc corks it up.'


That's because, while not quite a vintage just yet, Bordeaux has yet to experience a hangover during the former Manchester United defender's first foray into football management.



After Sunday's comprehensive 3-0 win over Paris St. Germain, 'Le President' and his side lie second in the table - just three points behind Lyon, and look as though they may take the title race past Easter for the first time since Karim Benzema played in France's under-11 league.



Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas - in a tired piece of kidology which fooled no-one - even claimed last week that Bordeaux are 'favourites' for the title, reasoning that as they no longer have Europe to worry about after their recent pitiful UEFA Cup exit to Anderlecht, they can focus all their energies on purely domestic chores.



Aulas is conveniently overlooking the fact that Lyon are also likely to be able to tuck away their passports for another year come the middle of this week, but that he can even feasibly make such a statement is a startling phenomenon in France after six years of Lyon-opoly.



In fact, Bordeaux finished second only two years ago under Ricardo, a Brazilian about as samba-esque as Stockport. However, coming up 15 points shy of Lyon at the finish gave the sense that they were very much the 'best of the rest.'



Ricardo - now at Monaco - could justifiably argue that the Lyon of two years' ago was a far more fearsome prospect than Alain Perrin's current crop. But there is the feeling that, under Blanc, les Girondins are being rebuilt on the ethos that saw Sylvain Wiltord et ak win them the title back in 1999 and could see them mature into Lyon's first genuine challengers since Didier Deschamps' Monaco in 2004.



While Ricardo produced ultra-defensive line-ups that beat opponents by dimming their wits rather than outwitting them, Blanc - a defender more associated with culture than clogging - has fashioned a side in his own image, and the players - like escaped convicts - are revelling in their new-found freedom.



'It's like a big release, we feel like we are allowed to do our job and play football again,' said parolee David Jemmali of Blanc's modus operandi earlier in the season. 'When Ricardo was here, even the strikers were defenders.'


There is not too much danger of that under Blanc, who immediately abandoned the 4-5-1 of his over-cautious predecessor to install a 4-4-2 habitually on the front foot and spearheaded by the familiar features of David Bellion - well, 'familiar' if you were a regular at Manchester United reserve team fixtures a couple of years ago.



Blanc's departure from Old Trafford in 2003, Premiership winners' medal in hand to go alongside the World Cup and Euro 2000 gongs, coincided with Bellion's arrival from Sunderland, which means the former international never got to see his pacy but headless-young-chicken of a compatriot bullying Northwich Vics in the Lancashire Senior Cup.



However, Blanc - like Peter Reid, Sir Alex Ferguson and unlike your average football fan - clearly spied something in Bellion that appealed, and he has been handsomely proved right since taking him off Nice's hands in the close season.



Before his form, like a New Year's Day bather, took a dip after Christmas, Bellion was France's second-top scorer - behind Benzema - with 11 goals, and though he is still stuck on that figure, his all-round displays have provoked cooing praise from public, press and - most importantly - Blanc.

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