Not even Chelsea would sack Luiz Felipe Scolari less than six months into a three-year contract should the unthinkable happen and his side be eliminated from the Champions League in a fortnight, but the Brazilian is right to indulge in his version of black humour. Given the club’s intolerance of even glorious failure in the recent past, making light of the situation is probably his best bet.

Scolari has not suddenly become a bad manager, any more than last year’s finalists and Barclays Premier League runners-up have been transformed into also-rans, but they no longer look like the formidable side they appeared to be a month ago, and results have worsened.

After starting the season with a 12-match unbeaten run, including nine wins, Chelsea have failed to win five of their nine matches in the last month, with their only victories coming against Hull City, Sunderland, Blackburn Rovers and West Bromwich Albion. Many of the problems are not of Scolari’s making, but they still need addressing.

All in the planning

Liverpool ended Chelsea’s record of 86 home league matches without defeat last month, but more significantly showed others a way in which they could be beaten, or at least frustrated. Rafael Benítez correctly identified John Obi Mikel as the man who begins most of their attacking moves by passing the ball out from the back, pushing Steven Gerrard farther forward on to the Nigeria midfield player, as well as instructing Dirk Kuyt and Albert Riera to deny any space to José Bosingwa and Ashley Cole, the full backs, thus preventing their counter-attacks. Other managers have followed suit effectively to deny Scolari’s side the width that they used to dominate teams at the start of the season, while Mikel’s performances in particular have dipped as he has attracted close attention in recent weeks and Chelsea have shown the first signs of missing the experience of Claude Makelele, his predecessor, in the midfield holding role.

Notable absentees

Scolari can do nothing about the rotten luck that has left him without Michael Essien, Ricardo Carvalho, Didier Drogba, Joe Cole and Michael Ballack for long periods this season, but the club’s disciplinary record could be improved. Drogba’s three-match domestic suspension for throwing a coin at Burnley fans was utterly unnecessary, while Deco and Frank Lampard should have too much experience to be suckered into collecting second bookings late in games, as they have in the past two Champions League matches, depriving Scolari of their services for key matches.

Size matters

Such problems have left Chelsea’s squad looking smaller than at any previous point during the Roman Abramovich era, although Scolari’s options were limited from the start, particularly in the attacking sphere. Scolari allowed Andriy Shevchenko, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Claudio Pizarro to leave last summer without securing replacements, while the expected arrival of Robinho failed to materialise. As a result, Chelsea’s team have picked themselves and remained unchanged for much of the season, leaving the players vulnerable to fatigue as winter has set in. Nicolas Anelka has responded manfully to shouldering the goalscoring burden in Drogba’s absence by scoring 14 times in 19 matches, but is unlikely to continue to do so.

Tightening the purse strings

Other than the half-fit Drogba, the inconsistent Salomon Kalou was the attacking player on the bench against Bordeaux on Wednesday night, a sure sign of a squad in need of reinforcements. Scolari has already been told that he must sell before he can buy during the transfer window, however, because Abramovich is determined to control costs, to such an extent that Chelsea travelled to France in a half-full economy plane rather than their usual business-class. The situation is exacerbated by Chelsea’s woeful record of youth development, which is likely to cost Frank Arnesen his job before the end of the season. In almost four years he has not produced a player good enough for the first team. Franco Di Santo and Miroslav Stoch — expensive teenage imports — have appeared on the bench this season, but neither is ready for the step-up.

One-dimensional

Scolari’s tactics essentially remain unaltered from those that won the World Cup for Brazil six years ago with a holding midfield player — Gilberto Silva or Mikel — stepping back to get things started from within a back three, with the full backs charging forward. Such a game plan is thrilling to watch when things are going well, but can be neutered by hard-working away teams such as Liverpool and Newcastle United, in particular, have shown at Stamford Bridge. The manager’s apparent stasis in the second half against Newcastle was particularly worrying, as he failed to make any real changes in shape or personnel. He needs to find a plan B.