Tigana set a mission improbable

Fulham v Birmingham: Cottagers' French manager needs a saviour. Sava could be the man

The message from inside Fulham Football Club is clear. If, and it is a big if, Jean Tigana wants to be manager next season he has to achieve two things – a top 10 finish in the Premiership and a good run in the FA Cup.

Talks over a two-year extension to the Frenchman's contract, which runs out in June, have not started. If Fulham lose to Birmingham City in the third round of the Cup today they are unlikely ever to take place. It appears to be that simple.

So is it "Tigonna", as the headline in one tabloid newspaper put it last week? Well, not yet – although Fulham did achieve their best result for six weeks when a waterlogged pitch led to the postponement of the New Year's Day meeting with West Brom. Defeat then and today and it may well have been adieu.

Speculation was further fuelled by the sight of Mick McCarthy in the Fulham director's box for the home defeat against Manchester City. McCarthy is a former City player but, more importantly, is a high-profile, out-of-work manager.

Fulham have tried to dampen down the speculation in recent days, stressing what Tigana has achieved and the crippling injury list he has endured. But they have also stated – again – that there is no more money for team-building and conceded – again – that the relationship between the manager and chairman Mohamed Al Fayed has been difficult. "The chairman is sensitive to the difficulties of football but is also impatient for success," one insider said. As for the presence of McCarthy, that was because he is "a friend of the club" – the kind of description which will only serve to fuel speculation.

In truth it appears that Tigana may well have been replaced by now but for three factors. Firstly, the cost – it would take up to £3 million to compensate him, his assistant, Christian Damiano, and trainer Roger Propos. It is money Fayed would be loath to part with. He has also now embarked on costly litigation over the troubled transfer of striker Steve Marlet and is being sued by Marlet's former club, Olympique Lyon, after refusing to pay the agreed fee.

Secondly, the chairman is aware that anger among fans towards him is growing, especially over the stadium issue, with the announcement that the present plan to redevelop Craven Cottage has been scrapped. That it came two days before Christmas only soured relations further and led to talk that Fayed, who holds the freehold, is about to sell the site.

And thirdly, there is Tigana's squad of players. There are so many young recruits – especially the legion of Frenchmen – that Fulham are genuinely concerned whether in the short term they would take to a new manager. And it is the short term that is exercising everyone at the moment, especially the fight against relegation.

They lie an uncomfortable 16th in the League – just five points above the drop zone – and the mood on Friday at the training ground in Motspur Park, south-west London, was as heavy as the sky. "We are, little by little, going down and down and we need a win," says the midfielder Sylvain Legwinski, who is also one of Tigana's expensive recruits and exactly the type of player who could be deeply affected by his departure.

And so to the FA Cup. Tigana has a fine record in knockout competitions, having taken Monaco to the semi-finals of the Champions' League and this season endured seven rounds of European competition with Fulham. Last year, of course, he took them to the semi-finals of the FA Cup.

It was Fulham's best performance since Alec Stock's side of 1975 lost the final 2-0 to West Ham. In the semis they beat Birmingham City 1-0 after a hard-fought replay at Maine Road. Today is the first time the sides have met in the Cup since, neither having won it.

Not that the draw needed any extra spice. There is no love lost between these sides following two turbulent League meetings this season which ended in dismissals and the bizarre announcement on Thursday that Angela Morrison, the mother of Birmingham striker Clinton, has been barred from the players' lounge today after a dust-up with Fulham defender Rufus Brevett.

The game will not, however, mark the debut of French World Cup winner Christophe Dugarry for Birmingham – he is a former team-mate of Legwinski's at Bordeaux, and a man who has the kind of volatile, aggressive game that might have only stirred things up even more. His record this season reads: played 12, no goals, three bookings, two red cards, but he did not sign in time for today.

It means the "King of Bordeaux" (as Birmingham's manager, Steve Bruce, dubbed him) will miss out on an encounter with the "The Man in the Mask" – Fulham's striker Facundo Sava. Sounds like a cheesy B movie from the 1950s, but if ever the Cottagers needed someone to ride to the rescue, it is now.

Sava is an unlikely hero. With a degree in social psychology and a deep interest in politics, he is more comfortable talking about the industrial revolution than the French revolution at Fulham, and lists his favourite places in London as the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. He is a voracious reader of newspapers – to help his English – and is well aware of what has been written about the club and his manager.

But he also neatly sidesteps suggestions that his studies may help him cope with the turmoil. "I know the situation but I am a player not a social psychologist now. I am not a manager – in the future it is possible – but I need to play and score goals," he says.

The 28-year-old Argentinian is that rare thing – a player signed by Fulham during the brief and ill-fated period in which Franco Baresi was the director of football. He joined last summer for £2m having previously played for Gimnasia Esgrima La Plata and Boca Juniors and, aged 21, having turned out against his hero, Diego Maradona.

Rumour has it that Tigana was intent on dumping him, for no other reason than because he was Baresi's signing. But he stayed and despite limited chances – 12 appearances this season – he is the top scorer, albeit with just five goals, each strike leading to the appearance of those trademark masks.

"I started wearing them in Argentina," he says. "A team-mate gave me a mask to wear if I scored a goal in a local derby. I put it in my sock and the score was 2-2 until the last two minutes, when I scored. I remembered the mask and put it on. The next game, 6,000 people in the stadium were wearing masks."

The reaction in west London has been a little more muted, although Sava has now received masks to wear sent in by fans. So will there be one today? "Yes, but it will be a surprise," he says. "No one knows what mask it will be except me. It is good luck to me."

Wearing the mask is not a tribute to any superhero – "I don't even like Zorro," he says – but a winning goal today will seal his own cult status.