Fayed's patience ebbs as Tigana fights the flow of bad news

Down at Fulham's training ground, Motspur Park, there was no sign of the car in question. Plenty of BMWs, Mercedes and high-spec 4 x 4s. But no Ferrari.

The vehicle's owner – the French striker Steve Marlet – was there but he left as a passenger in a blacked-out Ford Explorer. Maybe the inclement weather did not do much for his high-performance machine. Maybe Marlet was seeking a lower profile after a week in which his club had revealed they were about to sue his agents and awkward questions were being asked over his bloated £11.5m transfer from Olympique Lyon.

It is Marlet's own lack of high performance since signing a five-year, £40,000-a-week deal with Fulham in August 2001 that has been exercising the mind and the mouth of the club's chairman Mohamed Al Fayed.

Already irritated by what he regarded as a poor return for his investment, Fayed is said to have been less than pleased when Marlet apparently splashed out on the sports car while injured last season. It was as if Fayed was asking himself: why am I spending so much money and getting so little in return?

It is something many a football chairman has lost sleep over. But the gnawing question has grown in Fayed's mind and set in train a series of events which will lead to the departure of his manager, Jean Tigana, the probable sale of the striker and the Harrods owner scaling down his own financial commitment to the club. Tigana's lucrative three-year contract runs out in June and Fayed has shown no real interest in renewing it, despite the Frenchman guiding Fulham to the Premiership and taking them into their first European competition this season.

The relationship between the two men – at best regarded as "a grudging mutual respect" – has deteriorated. The news from the dressing-room is that Tigana has been openly critical while Fayed's camp were this weekend alluding to the Frenchman's "sensitive psyche".

This was evident, they say, in Tigana's outburst over the Marlet transfer in which he said: "The story started at the same time as the Baresi story. I don't know why they started together these stories and now they have come back."

The "Baresi story" refers to Fulham's ill-fated liaison with the former Italian defender Franco Baresi who was brought in as the "chairman's adviser on football". Tigana and Baresi never got on and the latter departed after just 81 days.

But the incident drove a wedge through the club, particularly as it became apparent that Baresi was hired because of the Marlet deal. That transfer was brokered by Tigana although it is unusual for a manager to conduct such negotiations these days. There is no suggestion that Tigana, a former football agent, profited from the deal, though, according to one Fulham source, "he has been left with egg on his face" by the controversy.

The club even took the extraordinary step of checking Tigana's bank account and employed a lawyer who is an expert in contract law to see if the deal should be re-examined. Fulham also took the opportunity to press home to Tigana that the coffers were empty. After spending £30m – during a period in which Fayed "had" (note the past tense) great faith in his manager's judgement – he was told that his only deals would be free transfers and out-of-contract players.

When the transfer window opens in January there will be no money, even if Tigana sells. "Mr Al Fayed is a businessman and he is now looking at Fulham more closely as a business," one source said. "In business if you buy something and don't believe you have value for money, you are not happy. That's how he feels."

As for any hope that fans had of returning to Craven Cottage on the banks of the Thames – at present they ground-share at Loftus Road – that was killed off last week. The club won a little-reported court victory supporting its development but also made a statement which talked more of having to make the project "commercially viable" than any desire to return to the ground. Trying to survive in a 28,000- capacity stadium is not workable, Fulham believe, especially when that site is itself prime for property development. Fayed, of course, owns the freehold. Fulham were also dumped out of the Uefa Cup just as the competition was starting to move into the more financially lucrative stages.

It is safe to say that these are troubling times. Today they meet Birmingham City in a fixture that could define the rest of their season. Win, and they can start looking up. Lose, and their perspective is downwards. And, as no one at Fulham needs reminding, there is little stomach for a relegation battle – not least with a chairman whose legendary lack of patience is wearing paper thin.

As for Marlet he is out of the game, serving the final part of a three-match ban for a sending-off. Not the kind of performance to please his chairman.