The new English Premier League season might be only a week old but already three of the game's highest profile managers are entitled to be worried about what lies ahead.
Two of them in England boss Steve McClaren and Manchester United's veteran manager Sir Alex Ferguson are concerned about the same thing - just what effect the loss of star striker Wayne Rooney with a broken foot will have done to the hopes of their respective teams.
And the third - Tottenham's Martin Jol - may soon find the expectations he has built up amongst his club's long-suffering supporters over the past two years will soon come back to haunt him.
The injury to Rooney and Spurs' surprisingly poor start to the season have been the dominant issues to emerge out of the opening week of the season - during which time qualifying for the European Champions League and the start of the English League Cup has also got underway.
Rooney suffered his third serious foot injury in the space of three years during United's disappointing 0-0 opening day draw at home to Reading.
The injury, which is likely to sideline Rooney for two months, could not come at a worse time not only for United but also England as it rules him out of upcoming European Championship qualifying games against Israel and Russia in early September.
England is already struggling in fourth place in the Group E qualifying table - three points behind Croatia and Israel and a point behind Russia with five matches to play, although Israel has played a game more than the other three leading teams.
With only the top two to qualify just how desperate McClaren's predicament has become is obvious and if England can't win those upcoming home games against Israel and Russia, they can virtually kiss goodbye any hopes of reaching the finals in Austria and Switzerland - which take place in June 2008, immediately after the current domestic season.
And if England fails to qualify then surely as night follows day McClaren will be sent packing from what is arguably the toughest job in football.
With Rooney out, Michael Owen still not yet recovered from his seemingly endless injury problems and other leading candidates in Liverpool's Peter Crouch and Tottenham's Jermaine Defoe struggling to get a game at club level - McClaren is facing a severe shortage of strikers for the most important games of his managerial career.
Unlike McClaren, Ferguson is not under pressure to hold his job but without Rooney he could quickly see his beloved United fall too far behind arch-rival Chelsea in the race for the EPL title.
United's first game without Rooney - on Thursday morning (Australian time) - resulted in another draw, this time with Portsmouth, and with just two points from two games the Red Devils already find themselves four points adrift of the Blues, who have maximum points after two games.
While there might still be 36 games to go, gaining an early lead has proved decisive in the title race in the past three years as United discovered last year when Chelsea could not peg them back just as the Red Devils could not peg back the Blues after handing them the early advantage in the previous two seasons.
And Man U might have to look out behind them as well because while they are struggling - with wonder winger Cristiano Ronaldo now also facing a suspension after getting himself sent off against Pompey - the other heavyweights of English football in Liverpool and Arsenal have made bright starts to the season by winning both their opening EPL games and almost certainly ensuring Champions' League qualification with away victories on Thursday morning.
Already you would bet on United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal again finishing in the top four given Spurs' dreadful start to the season.
The big-spending North London club - seen as the only club capable of breaking the dominance of the big four after finishing fifth the past two years and further boosting their squad with the additions of Darren Bent and Gareth Bale - have lost their first two games and right now sit last on the EPL table.
While they won't stay there, Spurs may already find that conceding such a big start to the leading teams will cost themselves any chance of a top four finish and that could prove costly for Jol because impatient Spurs' fans - not to mention the club's board - will no longer settle for mediocrity given the talent he now has at his disposal.