Hull City sacked Liam Rosenior for playing boring football – this weekend he could qualify for the Champions League

The odds are Liam Rosenior will not make it all the way to the continent's premier competition – his Racing Strasbourg team need a better result at relegation-threatened Le Havre than Nice get at home to Brest and Lille at home to Reims – but some European football is a strong possibility.

Strasbourg go into Saturday's final day sixth, trailing Nice and Lille on goal difference. Keep Lyon – three points behind with a better goal difference – at arm's length and at minimum they will be in next season's Conference League. Fifth means the Europa League, fourth the Champions League qualifying rounds.

Strasbourg have only once played in Europe – the 2019 Europa League play-offs – in the last 20 years.

For two years they have been backed by parent club Chelsea's money and even players – Andrey Santos, Djordje Petrovic and Caleb Wiley (now at Watford) were loaned in the summer, Diego Moreira signed permanently – but it did not do Patrick Viera much good in season one, finishing 13th.

Like Chelsea, they have one of the youngest squads in Europe – the youngest in Ligue 1.

Rosenior and former Hull right-hand man Justin Walker joined late in pre-season, so it is no surprise Strasbourg have got better as the campaign has gone on. Last week's 2-1 defeat at Angers was their second in the league since November.

He has largely come away from the 4-2-3-1 used at Hull, often using a back three, usually with a "box midfield" a la Ruben Amorim or Oliver Glasner, but the focus on keeping the ball and pressing high remain.

Only Paris Saint-German have lost fewer Ligue 1 games – one in Strasbourg a fortnight ago – but Lille are the only top-seven team to score fewer. Not producing football exciting enough for owner Acun Ilicali cost Rosenior the Hull job.

Strasbourg president Marc Keller calls Rosenior's style "attractive" and handed him a new three-year contract last month to ward off Southampton and Leicester City.

“Signing for Racing is the best decision of my career," said Rosenior on agreeing his new deal.

“I firmly believe in our project and in the future of Racing: together, we can build something special.”

If you discount Southampton interim Simon Rusk, there are only four Englishmen managing in Europe's "Big Five" leagues. Lens' Will Still was born in Belgium, and Eddie Howe and Graham Potter are in the Premier League.

Although he is having intensive French lessons, Rosenior coaches in English. Ex-Reading team-mate and first-team coach Kalifa Cisse translates in press conferences.

"What I’ve learned in three months here, I probably wouldn’t have learned in England over five years,” Rosenior said at that stage of his French journey.

You can bet Premier League clubs are keeping tabs on the 40-year-old – not least Chelsea.

Seeing Hull only escape relegation from the Championship on goal difference 12 months after going into the final day hoping to squeeze into the play-offs tells you what a bad decision sacking Rosenior was.

The Tigers have burnt through two more managers since, in Tim Walter and now Ruben Selles.

Rosenior's talents were widely recognised when Hull showed their former player the door – weeks earlier he was shortlisted as Championship manager of the year.

What he has done since only highlights what Hull missed out on through impatience and unrealistic expectations.