Frank Arnesen, the Chelsea director of scouting and youth development, is coming under increasing pressure to justify his £1.8 million-a-year salary after the club removed two thirds of the international scouts working under him in a shake-up of their talent-spotting operation.

The Times revealed on Friday that Chelsea were beginning a significant cost-cutting exercise, with Luiz Felipe Scolari being told that he must sell players before he can buy during the January transfer window, and they wasted no time by sacking 15 scouts that day.

Arnesen is likely to hold on until the end of the season because paying him off would represent more waste at a time of retrenchment, but his future will be discussed in further detail at the end of the season. The Dane agreed a one-year rolling contract when he arrived from Tottenham Hotspur and it may not be renewed.

Arnesen’s move to Chelsea caused much controversy 3½ years ago, with Tottenham reporting their London rivals to the Premier League for an alleged illegal approach before settling for £5 million in compensation. In his remit as their scouting supremo, the 52-year-old pledged to provide a youth-team player for Chelsea’s first team within three years and deliver a further player every subsequent year, but no one has made the breakthrough. John Terry, ten years ago, was the last home-grown player to become a regular.

The young players who have made league appearances in the past few years, such as Scott Sinclair, were signed from other clubs, yet Arnesen is confident of keeping his job because of the strength of his relationship with Roman Abramovich and Piet de Visser, the owner’s personal scout, but the sacking of Avram Grant at the end of last season shows that friendship is not enough to guarantee survival at Stamford Bridge.

Given such failures, Chelsea had always been planning to restructure their scouting network at the end of the season, along with looking at Arnesen’s role, but the desire to cut costs in the worsening economic climate has led them to do away with the job sooner than expected.

“We are restructuring our scouting network,” a club spokesman said. “We are refocusing our attention on key territories and key targets rather than the existing wider approach.”