It may also have influenced the omission of Sutter.The decision for Venables is whether to field three of his own at the back as a response, with a midfield player helping out when necessary, or whether to line up with a four. Jorge believes he does not use his skills enough in areas that hurt the opposition. Knup, who scored Switzerland’s goal in the 3- 1 defeat at Wembley last November, has been injured for most of the season and did not impress when returning to play for his club Karlsruhe in the German cup final.Up front instead, Jorge will probably pair Kubilay Turkyilmaz with Marco Grassi and employ Stephane Chapuisat just behind, if he is fit enough after missing most of Borussia Dortmund’s season with damaged knee ligaments. He should know early on if anyone is unavailable for what will be a match that England must be expected to win with the opposition in apparent disarray.Venables was in Basle last night to see Switzerland’s 2-1 loss against the Czech Republic.

The country’s football followers have been stunned at the changes wrought by their new coach, Artur Jorge – changes that could alter Venables’s thinking.Jorge, who took over from the Englishman Roy Hodgson earlier this year, has left out of his 22 the stalwarts Alain Sutter and Adrian Knup and has also been toying with a change of tack from Hodgson’s system to a 3-4-3.Sutter is an eye-catching blond left-footer of the sort who induces scepticism among coaches. Whoever it is, appropriate action should be taken for the good of England’s preparation.That should not involve anything so drastic as a player being dropped from the squad, but if England, which is hoping to host a trouble-free tournament, wants to send out a message to its own young footballers and to a Europe bemused and outraged by the sky jinks, something must be done. The miscreant(s) should be punished with suspension for the first game.And promptly. Venables has crucial decisions to make this week in the way he intends to play against the Swiss and the personnel to be used. It should not have been allowed to spill into this week, when England’s concentration should be on Saturday’s game against Switzerland at Wembley.It may well be that Gazza, who confessed on television last Sunday to a fear of flying and may have considered a nerve-calmer or two necessary, is the culprit. They may have been trying not to rush to judgement, but the matter should have been dealt with in the slow week that inevitably precedes a major championship when issues are being sought and magnified.

Last night Venables insisted that any culprit would be punished. “If someone is guilty I will come down on them like a ton of bricks But I will not throw them to the wolves for the sake of it. The lads know me well enough to realise that if I am not happy with anything I hear, they will have to suffer the consequences.”
The assumption in this week of pots and kettles has been that Paul Gascoigne is chief culprit in the saga that ended with a twist on the old phrase of “what’s the damage?” The FA’s chief executive, Graham Kelly, has conceded, indeed, that the incident occurred at Gascoigne’s seat.There the matter resides, and Kelly has been criticised for his organisation’s hesitation in laying it to rest. One hopes that he can pass quickly on to the real business which starts in six days. “When things go wrong,” he observed, “the spectators get on top of her.” Only in their dreams.. When Terry Venables gathers the England party tonight at their Berkshire base for Euro 96, his first job will be to establish exactly who was Cathay’s clown. Perhaps the black dress was a sort of advance mourning statement Simon Reed, the commentator, sympathised.

But a Quite Entertaining Documentary.Eurosport have been beaming live coverage of the French Open from the Stade Roland Garros, which has enabled fashion experts to check out what the beau monde of Paris are wearing not to watch tennis. The key accessory, of course, is a pair of designer shades, so that bronzed blondes can make it absolutely clear that they are ignoring events on court without revealing precisely who they are staring at instead (inevitably, other BBs wearing outfits more expensive than their own).On court, Mary Pierce tumbled sulkily out of the tournament, to the dismay of sports picture editors all over the world. Murray Walker, in full flaming-trouser flow, took up the commentary “And you ride with Jean Alesi,” he yelled “And Alesi is settling down with Benetton extremely well. I’ve just been talking to Pat Symonds, his race engineer, and Alesi, who has this rather hysterical image, is actually a much calmer man, Pat says, than you would think.” At this, Alesi calmly drove into the side of Eddie Irvine’s Ferrari, tearing lumps off the Benetton, before placidly executing a tyre-cooking 180-degree spin and serenely haring off to the pits for some Sellotape work.”The great thing about motor racing,” Brawn reflected, as his rival teams’ drivers sprayed champagne in the background, “is that you can have one bad race and then the next one can be fantastic.” Seven races into the season, Benetton have still not found out how to win a grand prix So, not much of a demonstrandum. His theory of car control was to do with more basic instincts.