It's not getting any easier for Bob Bradley or Swansea City.
The Swans took a point from a trip to Everton this weekend, which might be considered an encouraging result but for the fact that it was a draw forced upon Swansea by an 89th-minute equalizer from the home team.
To add injury to that insult, Sunderland beat Hull City (3-0), leaving the Swans in sole possession of last place in England's Premier League.
The team has six points from its first 12 games of the 2016-17 EPL season, and three of those points were won from the first match of the new campaign.
Bob Bradley was appointed to ease the club away from potential crisis. He has yet to guide the Swans to a win, and the team has picked up just two points from the American's first five games as head coach.
Under the not-rapidly-improving circumstances, it is easy to understand why Ki Sung-yueng reportedly used the word "crisis" to describe his team's predicament. Given that his job is to pilot the club out of its present situation, it is equally easy to understand why Bradley disagreed with his player.
The search for a path out of the relegation zone saw the Swansea head coach make sweeping changes to his starting lineup - though, as he noted in his post-match comments, those changes were mostly to return the lineup to the group that started against Arsenal in Bradley's first game in charge of the Swans.
But for the BBC's Garth Crooks, Bradley's decision to drop (among many others) the outspoken Ki Sung-yueng smacked of retribution. The pundit suggested such recriminations would be counter-productive and urged Bradley to "grow up" in comments on Final Score:
In fairness to Bradley, he did put Ki on the field toward the end of the match, shortly before Everton found its equalizer. If all had gone according to plan, the Korean international would have been on the pitch for Swansea's first win under the guidance of the EPL's first American manager.
But Seamus Coleman intervened and Bradley was once again putting on a brave face to the press.
Post-match, the coach was characteristically methodical and determined in his outlook: "The work to turn this thing around has to continue; there's no other way."
Next up for Swansea is a home game against Crystal Palace - a team in even worse form than the Swans: Palace has lost its last five league matches.