Memo to club chairmen everywhere. The next time your manager starts crying about the fact that he needs an additional £20 million to spend in the January transfer window to “strengthen” an underachieving squad packed with the duds he bought the previous summer, just refer him to Pablo Correa.

The Uruguayan coach has taken unheralded, underappreciated and underfinanced Nancy up to second place in the French league table. He’s done it without bringing in a single new face over the summer and with a wage bill that might be mistaken for the bar bill at some Barclays Premier League clubs’ Christmas parties.

Nancy go into the Ligue 1 break four points off the top, after Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Lyons, the leaders. And, had it not been for a recent slide, they might be at the top of the table. That is remarkable for a side who, just a few years ago, were at the foot of the second division, mired in debt.

Despite no formal football education, Correa, a striker who moved to Nancy from South America in 1995 and never left, has nevertheless developed an effective, if frustrating, style. Against Lyons, each time one of the opposition ventured into the final third, he was met by a cloud of white shirts, swarming around like killer bees. With four defenders and two hyperactive central midfield players – Benjamin Gavanon and Pascal Berenguer – sitting deep, Nancy always had numbers at the back. But, in fact, the defensive work began up front, where the strikers and wingers alternated between tracking back and pressing high up the pitch. Indeed, the front four ran so much, it was exhausting just watching them sprint around and harass the opposition.

Correa’s football is not pretty. When the front four press and the central midfield retreats, it turns into a de facto 6-0-4 formation. But it helps to make Nancy one of the most water-tight sides in Europe. Indeed, in the top five leagues, only Manchester United, Inter Milan and Bayern Munich have conceded fewer goals than Nancy. Then again, there is only so much Correa can do with the players at his disposal.

Their most marketable asset is Sébastien Puygrenier, the defender, who brings a ferocious intensity to proceedings and clears the ball as if he were trying to hit satellites in the Earth’s orbit. Gennaro Bracigliano, their inspirational goalkeeper, is a solid shot-stopper, if not exactly a sculpted athlete. Youssouf Hadji, the Morocco forward and younger brother of Mustapha (who had stints at Deportivo La Coruña, Coventry City and Aston Villa), lacks his sibling’s technique, but makes up for it with workrate. Gavanon is a former rising star who, at 27, never made the step up. They also have the ritual Brazilian “ace”, although they found him in Saudi Arabia. Still, Carlos Henrique Kim is their top scorer, albeit with only six goals.

The fans of Nancy, who count Arsène Wenger and Aimé Jacquet among their former managers, are enjoying their most successful side since a certain Michel Platini lined up for them in the 1970s. A word of caution before you hurry off and decide that their blueprint is a sure-fire path to success for every cash-strapped bottom-dwelling club around.

They started very well last season, too, with 22 points in their first 12 matches, before finishing 13th. The implosion was blamed on Correa’s physically demanding style, which left the players exhausted a third of the way through the season. Despite their gaudy league position, they haven’t won a game in the past month. A case of history repeating itself?

Fifa’s double standards

Fifa has a basic rule, that any affiliated football association must be free of political interference and/or influence from its nation’s government. And that’s why over the past few weeks it has been embroiled in a row with the Iranian FA, since it refused to bar the country’s vice-president, Mohammed Aliabadi, to run for its top post. For, you see, Aliabadi is a politician (and the right-hand man of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president) and Fifa wants to keep politics and sport separate.

It’s a commendable stance. But it’s also somewhat silly in an organisation in which nearly a third of the member nations have undemocratic totalitarian regimes.

Does Fifa really think that the heads of the FAs in North Korea or Zimbabwe or Cuba would be there if it didn’t please the ruling regime? And how do you begin to police such a thing?

By the way, Lord Triesman, the man recently nominated to become the first independent chairman of the FA, is a member of the Labour Party, sits in the House of Lords and has held several parliamentary undersecretary of state posts.

Is Fifa going to go after him as well? What makes him different from Aliabadi?

Inter’s Liverpool test

Only two sides have beaten Inter Milan in the past 14 months: AS Roma and Fenerbahçe. They were knocked out of the Champions League last season on away goals, by Valencia. Their impressive run continued yesterday, when Inter beat AC Milan 2-1 in the San Siro derby, a game marked by the two sets of supporters agreeing to “go on strike” in protest against Serie A’s new draconian security measures.

It is Inter’s version of “sod’s law” that this period of dominance should coincide with Milan winning the Champions League – and the Club World Cup – which means they have been overshadowed outside Italian borders.

We will find out how good they really are when the Champions League restarts and they cross swords with Liverpool.

gabriele.marcotti@thetimes.co.uk