NORTHERN ROCK, USC, Woolworths... and Luiz Felipe Scolari. All victims of the financial downturn, although the handsomely paid Brazilian can expect scant public sympathy as he leads Chelsea to Manchester United today for a match that looks set to define their domestic campaign.
Scolari may not have featured in Robert Peston's bleak bulletins from the recession, but he has been told by Roman Abramovich's representative on earth, Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon, that he will not be allowed to reinforce the squad during
the transfer window. Part of a series of money-saving measures at a club where cash was once strewn like confetti, the edict comes when Chelsea arguably need new blood after only three victories in 10 games.
The bookmakers, noting the decline in form and the increase in penny-pinching (eg the players' ticket allocations being cut from eight to four), have made 'Big Phil' one of the favourites to be the next Premier League manager to lose his job. A sacking, with Chelsea in second place and through to the knockout stage of the Champions League, would be extremely harsh. This, however, is a club that dispensed with Avram Grant after the Israeli took them to within a missed John Terry penalty of a European Cup triumph at United's expense.
When Scolari arrived he must have been stirred by the prospect of lavishing Abramovich's millions, if not his billions, on making Chelsea popular as well as successful. He has since bought precisely one player, Deco, for a modest £8m. While he is accustomed to working without the luxury of playing the market, having coached Portugal and his home country, the spending freeze represents an alarming diversion from the route he thought he was embarking upon.
Ironically, Scolari could have been awash with dosh this month and competing with Sir Alex Ferguson from east Manchester rather than west London. Before joining Chelsea, he turned down the opportunity to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson at Manchester City. How was he to know Thaksin Shinawatra would soon sell up to an Arab consortium whose leader, Sheikh Mansour, has more than twice Abramovich's fortune? Poor old Roman, down to his last £7bn; United fans must be tempted to carry a sheet round the ground for spectators to throw their loose change into.
Back in the summer, when Scolari tied the knot with Abramovich on board the Russian's yacht, the brief was to introduce "fantasy football" at Chelsea. The blessed Jose Mourinho, for all his charisma and the two championships he delivered, favoured functionalism over flair, and Grant, pre-judged to be a dud by many critics, never overcame perceptions of him. With Deco thriving in the better weather in a way has been unable to sustain as an attritional campaign grinds on, Scolari enjoyed a bright start. Now he looks no closer to achieving the owner's ideal.
Surprisingly, the cracks showed at home first. After 86 games without defeat, stretching back to Claudio Ranieri's reign, Chelsea have lost to Liverpool and Arsenal. Last week they were held at Stamford Bridge by Southend, 13th in the third division.
Chelsea may actually be happier playing away. They take a stunning record to United but there have been signs of vulnerability on their travels, too, with two draws ending a run of eight successive wins. At Fulham they conceded an 89th-minute equaliser and, like Southend's late goal, it was a header from a set-piece.
If John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho are reunited in central defence, the possibility of such aberrations should be reduced if not eliminated. Getting his strongest side out has been one of Scolari's biggest problems. He has been without three key individuals in Carvalho, Didier Drogba and Michael Essien for much of the season, and even the vaunted squad strength built up during the free-spending days under Mourinho has struggled to compensate.
Scolari has bemoaned the lack of the fit left-winger that would enable him to pair Drogba with Nicolas Anelka in a 4-4-2 system, his remarks confirming that he does not regard Joe Cole as such a player, despite his numerous outings there for England. More to the point, for a club that has spent so freely it was tantamount to an admission, or perhaps accusation, of mismanagement.
Exactly whose mismanagement, he wasn't saying. But if Scolari is to be judged, it seems fair that it is with his own team, not one he inherited. To that end he might have expected to be able to buy a wide-left player – he is understood to covet Yuri Zhirkov, the "Russian Ronaldinho" – but even the £11m raised by the sale of Wayne Bridge to Manchester City will not be made available to him.
Events change things, of course, and the purse strings may be loosened if Chelsea are soundly beaten by a United team smarting from a Carling Cup embarrassment at Derby. Should that happen, a further defeat in the replay at Southend could conceivably provoke a panic by the owner and reward those who have gambled on Scolari's demise. But Ferguson's men concentrate minds wonderfully at Chelsea, who have lost only two of their past 16 meetings. For Big Phil, there could no better setting on which to halt the downturn.
