EXPECTATIONS are a funny thing. Once exceeded, fulfilling the next set becomes harder still. Just ask Steve Bruce.
Two years passed with the Hull City boss vaulting expectations at every turn, but now he finds them tripping him up in what has become his tricky third term.
Bruce predicted this would be his "greatest challenge yet" at the KC Stadium when returning for pre-season training and so it has proved.
With a squad far superior to any he has led during his time in East Yorkshire, he and supporters expected more from a season that began with so much promise. Write cheques with eight digits and it was only natural.
As well as early exits from the Europa League and Capital One Cup, 11 points from a possible 36 have made it uncomfortably slow going in the Premier League.
By Bruce's own admission, it is going to take nine points from the seven remaining games in 2014 just for the Tigers to work their way back to level par. With Manchester United, Everton and Chelsea three of the next four opponents, that would be a feat in itself.
But should this winter become darker still over the next week at Old Trafford and Goodison Park, at least it should bring the cold snap of reality.
For all City achieved when reaching the FA Cup final and obtaining survival with a handful of games to spare, it remains a club that was only promoted out of the Championship 18 months ago.
Runs such as this, a sequence of three consecutive defeats, remain inevitable. A fall to 17th, too, comes with the territory for most clubs of City's size. The key, just as it was last season, is to come through the slumps with belief intact.
A failure to win at Manchester United would make this the longest Bruce has gone without a victory as City boss, but do not mistake it as the worst run of his reign.
Since beating Crystal Palace on October 4, City have only played poorly once in defeat to Burnley. There were excellent points at Arsenal and Liverpool, an indifferent showing against Southampton and, most recently, a performance that deserved more than a last-minute reverse at home to Tottenham. But for Gaston Ramirez, City may have won and leapt up to 11th.
It's that sort of season at present; one to wonder what might have been.
At least the narrow margins suggests City are close to turning a corner. Four of the five Premier League defeats have come by a single goal and the other, a 4-2 loss to Manchester City, was not without its merits.
City have been no-one's whipping boys, as an incongruous goal difference of minus three underlines, but it's going to take victories to relieve the pressure that cannot be far away.
Even allowing for Manchester United's faults in transition under Louis van Gaal, it is hard to picture Bruce ending his record of having never beaten his former club as a manager. United have taken 13 points from a possible 15 at home of late and the only points dropped were against Chelsea.
The performances served up at Arsenal and Liverpool offer hope of another fine away day, but the Tigers will be hard pushed to avoid November being signed off as a pointless month in the campaign.
Prediction: Man Utd 2 Hull City 0.
