Southend shock could see off Scolari

Chelsea travel to Southend for an FA Cup replay on Wednesday where an upset win for the minnows would leave Roman Abramovich’s club in crisis and manager Luiz Felipe Scolari’s job in jeopardy.

Having just lost 3-0 to title rivals Manchester United in the Premier League these are tough times for a club that planned to dominate world football following the arrival of their Russian billionaire owner.

Chelsea justified that ambition when Abramovich appointed Jose Mourinho as manager and they won two league titles, two League Cups and an FA Cup during the Portuguese’s first few years in charge.

But last season Mourinho was sacked, replaced by Avram Grant, and Chelsea failed to win a single trophy despite reaching the Champions League Final in Moscow, where they lost on a penalty shootout to United.

The ensuing departure of Grant, replaced by Scolari, was expected to return the London club to the path of ever-greater success.

Instead the Blues have been knocked out of the League Cup by lower division Burnley and dropped 14 points at home so far this season – including defeats by Arsenal and Liverpool.

Meanwhile their performance at Old Trafford on Sunday was of such mental fragility that many critics believe they are out of the title race already.

It has all left Scolari, a coach who won the World Cup with Brazil, under intense pressure ahead of a banana-skin Cup tie against a Southend team who play in English football’s third tier but who still managed a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge a fortnight ago.

It’s all a far cry from the Mourinho days and Scolari is further hampered by a new era of spending cuts.

The worldwide credit crunch is said to have hurt even Abramovich’s finances and the arrival of other wealthy foreign owners, including Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City, have left him unable to dominate the transfer market in the way he did when spending more than 50 million pounds on Andriy Schevchenko and Didier Drogba.

So far Scolari has been able to buy just one player – Deco from Barcelona – and, despite selling Wayne Bridge to Manchester City, he has been warned there is no money to spend in the January window.

There are other signs, too, of difficulties for the west London side.

Their worldwide scouting system has been scaled down; Abramovich no longer attends so many matches; their youth team has failed to provide a single first-team regular over the last five years; the defence leaks goals alarmingly from set pieces and Scolari appears unable to find a system which could accommodate both Drogba and top scorer Nicolas Anelka.

The club will argue, perhaps fairly, that some of those changes have less to do with a crisis and more to do with facing current realities. They are also in tune with the aim of making Chelsea a self-sufficient football giant.

But for fans living in the here-and-now it all adds up to a very uncomfortable transition and Scolari knows a slip-up at Roots Hall, the humble home of Southend that holds just 12,000 fans, will make the pressure almost unbearable for a club that boasted it would one day be regarded as the biggest in the world.

“We need to play there and we need to win.” Scolari said. “Southend played a spirited game against us in the first game and their fans will be behind them. But we have to win.”

To his credit, Scolari gave an honest assessment of Chelsea’s poor performance at Old Trafford and has already begun the process of rebuilding his side’s reputation by insisting they will improve, even if he is unable to strengthen the squad.

“Don’t think that because we have lost one game we are finished,” he warned. “We have 17 games more in the league and we will fight until the last game.

“And I don’t want to sign more players. I have very good players already and I will go with them.

“Now is the time for me and the players to think about our future. We either lose everything or we are men and we make sure we improve.”

If Chelsea’s players don’t respond to their manager’s call, Scolari may well find thinking about the future is a luxury he can no longer afford.