Roman Abramovich may be compelled to act sooner rather than later if it appears Chelsea are heading for the Europa League

The old immutable law of the ex ensured that Glen Johnson would be the man to pop up with the late winner that helped his current club beat his old employers on Sunday. It is a law that was never likely to apply to Fernando Torres, who was granted only a fleeting appearance in the final stages but still managed to convey the impression of a man out of touch with whatever qualities persuaded Roman Abramovich to spend £50m to take him to Stamford Bridge last January.

In a dozen attempts, Chelsea have still not managed to beat a Liverpool team managed by Kenny Dalglish. A 1-0 defeat in the equivalent fixture last season, when Torres made a spectacularly hapless debut a few days after his arrival at Stamford Bridge, did no good to Carlo Ancelotti’s hopes of remaining at the club that he had led to a league and FA Cup Double the previous season. Now there is the question of how long André Villas-Boas, his expensively acquired successor, can cling on to the position.

Three of Chelsea’s last four league matches in the past month have ended in varying forms of ignominy. The representatives of a club into which the owner has poured around £750m would not have expected to lose by the only goal to the newly promoted Queens Park Rangers at humble Loftus Road. The subsequent 5-3 home defeat at Arsenal’s hands would have been simply unthinkable during the reign of José Mourinho, whose achievements his fellow Portuguese was employed to emulate.

Mourinho drew criticism towards the end of his time in London for sending out teams that played with a pragmatism inappropriate to the amount of money lavished on assembling their components, not to mention out of sync with the owner’s desire to see attractive football, but in his time there were plenty of 4-0 wins and absolutely no outright humiliations of the sort inflicted by Arsène Wenger’s players.

That was followed by a 1-0 victory at Ewood Park, at a time when beating Blackburn Rovers is no indication of a team’s quality. And then, following the international break, came this calamitous last-minute collapse, the result of the sort of indiscipline that would have had Mourinho frothing at the mouth. Abramovich paid Porto £13m in compensation for allowing Villas-Boas to leave before the end of his contract. Had he stayed, no doubt he would have maintained the extraordinary success of his first season, when his players won four trophies, including the Europa League, and went through the Portuguese league season unbeaten. But winning the Europa Cup at the age of 33 is not the same as winning the European Cup at 41, as Mourinho did.

“The owner did not pay €15m to get me out of Porto to pay another fortune to get me out of here,” Villas-Boas said on Sunday night, with more bravado than realism. If Abramovich is not distracted from football matters by his attempt to convince the high court that it would be wrong to order him to pass over a substantial part of his bank balance to his former partner Boris Berezovsky, he will think nothing of paying whatever amount of compensation is stipulated in his young manager’s contract. This is a man who shocked the art world by spending £63m at auction on works by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud three years ago, smashing records of all kinds in order to please his girlfriend.

Over Villas-Boas’s shoulder lurks the shadow of Guus Hiddink, newly unemployed as a result of Turkey’s inability to make it through last week’s Euro

The player hailed as the future of Brazil has done enough in four games to suggest he will be one of Roman Abramovich’s shrewdest signings

“He is like Ricardo Carvalho due to his pace, aggressiveness and ability to read the game” – Fernando Santos, Greece coach, formerly with Benfica

“David Luiz is the future of Brazil. I watched him with Brazil’s under-20s and saw that he was a player of enormous quality” – Dunga, Brazil coach until last year and captain of their 1994 World Cup-winning side

“I had respect for the players that were in front of me. Now I’ve had a chance I just need to keep playing well” – David Luiz, following his senior debut for Brazil, against the USA, August 2010

Only four games into his Chelsea career and David Luiz Moreira Marinho already appears a certainty to rank as one of Roman Abramovich’s shrewdest buys. On Sunday, at Stamford Bridge, Manchester City are the visitors, and there will be little surprise if the 23-year-old, who cost £21m from Benfica in January, produces another impressive display in central defence to continue a serene entry into English football.

Carlo Ancelotti says: “He has showed the quality in his game because he is a fantastic defender with the ball. In our kind of football it is important to have two central defenders who are able to play from the back with clean passes.”

City are third, two points ahead of David Luiz’s new team, and though securing Champions League football is the priority, Chelsea still fancy their chances of a late surge to retain their title, despite being three wins behind Manchester United, the leaders.

In the league meeting between the teams at the beginning of the month, Luiz played a starring role in a 2-1 win over United that allowed Chelsea to hope, at least, that they can again claim consecutive championships, after José Mourinho guided them to the feat in 2004-05 and the following season.

David Luiz is enjoying the challenge. “I like a lot to play strong football, I like the Premier League,” he told Chelsea TV. “This is the top, the high level for all players, every week for me is a strong challenge. Carlo Ancelotti said: ‘I’m so happy, you made the best choice in your life, now you are in the best club and I hope we can grow together.’”

The victory over United may mark the start of this successful symbiosis. David Luiz was the defining factor in the comeback win, scoring the equaliser before proceeding to infuriate Ferguson for escaping a red card, following fouls on Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernández.

For Internazionale’s Thiago Silva, who has been David Luiz’s accomplice in Brazil’s new central defensive pairing since last summer’s World Cup, there is no surprise at the 23-year-old’s impact. “David is calm and serene as well as effective,” he says.

Born in Diadema, near São Paulo, he made his professional debut for Esporte Clube Vitória in Brazil’s third division, Série C, six years before becoming one of Chelsea’s twin marquee signings in January, alongside Fernando Torres, who cost £50m from Liverpool. Each made their debut against the Spaniard’s former employers last month in the 1-0 home defeat and while Torres snatched at one gilded opportunity to score against Kenny Dalglish’s side – and is still to register for Chelsea – David Luiz floated a 70-yard pass to the striker during the game, suggesting that he would light up the league.

David Luiz, like Torres, has been bought by Abramovich (Ancelotti admitted recently that “it is not my team”) to rebuild an ageing Chelsea side that contains Didier Drogba, Nicolas Anelka, Ashley Cole, Florent Malouda and John Terry, who have all passed 30 as their careers move towards autumn.

The Brazilian’s route to west London began with rejection by São Paulo for being too small when he was 14. Leaving behind his father, Ladislau, a midfielder with Atlético Mineiro, and his mother, Regina, in 2002 he relocated to Vitória, which is more than 1,200 miles away on the coast of north-east Brazil.

Four years and a sizeable growth spurt later (he is now 6ft 1in), David Luiz was in the first team, initially as a defensive midfielder before moving to centre-back, helping Vitória to promotion in 2006. The next January he joined Benfica on loan and made his debut in March, in a 2-1 Europa League defeat against Paris St-German. He made enough of an impression that season to seal a permanent move that summer, worth around £2m.

In August 2007 he represented Brazil at the Under-20 World Cup in Canada, and Dunga, then head of the senior team, was impressed enough to label him the future of the five-times world champions.

Dunga still declined to pick him for last summer’s World Cup, despite his having helped Benfica to a first Portuguese title in five years, as well as the League Cup. David Luiz had done enough, though, to convince Chelsea’s opponents on Sunday to make a €37m bid. City’s offer was rejected, but Abramovich was able to convince Benfica to sell him six months later.

João Paulo Sampaio, his first coach at Vitória, says the key to understanding Luiz’s trajectory is his early schooling. “The defenders at the club [often] played in midfield, before shifting to centre-back,” he says. “Therefore, they get more contact with the ball and a better understanding of space.”

Today, Luiz should show more of this comprehension.

ChelseaPremier LeagueJamie Jacksonguardian.co.uk