First: a football manager who leads his team to six defeats in eight games can expect to find his suitability for the role called into question. Second: a football manger in charge of a team that lies in fourth place in the table, with a decent prospect of promotion, can pretty well regard himself as secure in his job.
What, then, to make of Ronnie Moore; in charge of a team that sits fourth in League Two, despite having lost six of its last eight matches? A man in fear of losing his job, or secure in his role?
It's an odd situation: freakish, almost. Almost by definition, good teams don't embark often on such poor runs. Equally, it's rare for a poor team to sit in the top four of the league, especially this far into a season.
There's a gnawing uncertainty to this season that makes it tortuous. By now, it should be clear if this is a team worth cherishing as genuine candidates for promotion, worth urging on in desperation in the hope that additional energy will tip it above mediocrity and into achievement, or simply a side to destined to disappoint.
But it isn't clear. The side bristled with energetic determination against Crewe. It showed a collective spirit and undimmed will to succeed in strong second half showings a Wycombe and Oxford. And yet it cowered meekly at Stevenage and slumped in weary resignation in the second half at Port Vale.
We're defying the narrative arc of the season. The first months, spent looking for signs of how this year's team will fare and coming to terms with the answer are gone. These are the months of performing well-rehearsed roles: the noble loyalist, phlegmatic in the face of a relegation fight; the eternal optimist, urging an average team into the spurt of form that might secure a play-off place; the nervous promotion contender, like a proud expectant father, but terrified of calamity. We're now being called to the stage, but we don't know which role we're meant to perform.
And that not-knowing makes changing the manager appear attractive, but it also makes it dangerous. Because whilst everyone might have found us out, and we face a meandering slide towards mid-table, it's just as possible that this slump in form really is just an aberration, a mixture of bad luck, poor decisions and difficult fixtures in quick succession. And if it is, replacing the manager could ruin the season (see the tumult caused by Jim Gannon's arrival at Vale Park).
There's the dilemma: how to react to a situation that isn't clear. Chuck the cards in the air and risk derailing the final push for the line or show faith in what might be a losing cause and come up short?
No easy answers. No certainties. If there weren't so many variables, it could be a recipe for excitement. But it's too tense, too slow moving. More than ever, we need an emphatic statement from the team, to give us some sense of how it's going to turn out. The next three games offer the platform for that. Let's hope we get it. Me? I just want to know now, one way or the other.