Barcelona's new coach Quique Setien knew his job would not be an easy one.
He took over when the team were top so anything less than that and he was going to face criticism. After just two league games in charge top spot has been surrendered to Real Madrid.
Here, Sportsmail looks at the reasons behind the shaky start at the Nou Camp.
FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
'What we have here is failure to communicate' as the old 'Cool Hand Luke' line goes. Setien said after the defeat on Saturday: 'There were things that we have not understood properly'. By 'we' he meant the players.
He said the team had 'played a lot of passes without any sense to them, just for sake of playing them'.
Only slightly back tracking on his earlier comment, he added: 'They are still not understanding things or perhaps we are not explaining them well.'
It's not the first time Setien has spoken about players not taking instructions on-board, or interpreting ideas.
The problem for him at Barcelona is it's easier to make those arguments post-match when you are coach of Las Palmas or Real Betis. It's not as easy when you are the Barcelona manager. As one respected Diario AS reporter tweeted on Saturday: 'Some of these players have won 35 trophies'.
SYSTEM ERROR
Setien has tinkered with the classic 4-3-3 formation of recent years by giving left back Jordi Alba freedom to get very high up the pitch, and by having Sergi Roberto on the right stay back, and when necessary tuck-in as a third centre back.
Some commentators have gone as far as to say it's a 3-5-2. That might be a stretch and in many ways it's no different to the back four Pep Guardiola preferred with Dani Alves high up on the right and Eric Abidal far more restrained at left back.
Whatever numbers you put on it, it doesn't seem to be working. Valencia's second goal on Saturday came about because Roberto was dragged centrally towards the ball and left Maxi Gomez free to score.
PHILOSOPHY
There has been lots of talk about possession and passing since Setien took over.
Some supporters who bemoan what they see as a lost style under Ernesto Valverde celebrated the team playing over 1000 passes in the 1-0 win over Granada on Setien's debut and having over 80 per cent of possession.
The misconception is that Pep Guardiola won 14 trophies at Barcelona just because his team kept the ball. His remarkable success had more to do with where on the pitch they had the possession.
The Guardiola forwards relentlessly pressed high up the pitch pinning teams in their own penalty area and the Guardiola defence operated on the half way line squeezing the pitch. This meant Barcelona could play their passes in and around the edge of the opponent's penalty area until the gaps appeared.
They trained it tirelessly in his first pre-season and with Samuel Eto'o, Thierry Henry (and later David Villa and Pedro) at one end, and Alves, Abidal and Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol (and later Javier Mascherano) at the other, he had the players to do it.
This is mid-season and those players are, bar Pique, no longer at the club.
With Luis Suarez on the pitch on Saturday Barcelona may well have got something from the game – a half chance buried here, a backside stuck out into the path of a defender there, clearing Messi's path to goal.
Without the league's third leading scorer the team will have to rely more heavily on Antoine Griezmann, who scored twice in the cup last week, or Ousmane Dembele who is back in training and should return in February, and on 17-year-old Ansu Fati.
Talk of bringing in Valencia's Rodrigo Moreno seems, for the moment, far-fetched. Valencia need to sell a player to balance their books but so do Barcelona so it's hard to see how they can come to an arrangement that will suit both.
There is talk of Barca offering to take the player on loan but without an obligatory buy this summer. Why would Valencia accept those terms?
The club might spring a transfer market surprise, supporters just hope it will be better than last January's when Kevin Prince Boateng came in but could not give the team what it needed.
PATIENCE
Some media in Catalonia have already pointed out that Setien's start – one win, one loss – is better than Guardiola's.
He picked up one point from his first two games. He then won his third game 6-1 away and never looked back.
Perhaps next week Setien's Barca team can inflict a heavy defeat on visitors Levante. That will give the new coach a cushion as he prepares to travel to Betis and host Getafe.
Napoli and Real Madrid also await. Madrid, as well as being Barca's first away game in March, are the club's biggest problem because they are now three points clear at the top.
They don't have their centre-forward out injured, they are not tying themselves in knots with debates about playing style, and they don't have a new coach still finding his feet. As one Catalan commentator wrote on Monday: 'There's a reason why Barcelona have only changed the manager mid-season once in the last 17 years.'
