A tense few weeks are in store for Sydney FC. Professional sport is mostly about peaks and troughs, and right now the Sky Blues are hitting the bottom of a curve. A few weeks ago second place and perhaps an unlikely charge at the minor premiership was a prospect - albeit slim. Now the bar has been lowered to a finals place. There's daylight between Sydney FC and the two genuine title contenders, Central Coast Mariners and Brisbane Roar. Truth is, there always has been. If you accept the view that the only club in Australia's biggest city should be setting the benchmark every season - not scrambling to reach it - then it's no wonder there's tension in the air. Not least because now, as it turns out, is the time for accountability.

First there's the coach. Vitezslav Lavicka has yet to tell the club if he wants to stay. That's first base in any discussions about the position. You'd imagine Lavicka is fast running out of time. Club boss Dirk Melton talks about the end of this month as a deadline of sorts. Lavicka might be thinking he needs a few wins before he walks into the room. Either way, someone has to make a move, and recent results make it more likely the club will blink first. Whether Lavicka wants to stay or go is one issue. Whether he deserves to stay, surely, is the bigger one.

Tough decisions to make ... Dirk Melton. Credit:Getty Images

Then there are the players. January is transfer window time. Sydney have one spot left on their roster, but little money to spend on it, unless they can shift a squad member. Juho Makela could get another tap on the shoulder, but last time he was given the option to leave he couldn't find a club. Makela's contract is up at the end of the season, along with six others. Among them are Michael Beauchamp, Karol Kisel, Bruno Cazarine and Shannon Cole. That makes it a nervous few weeks ahead for a third of the squad. That's a lot of distraction for a team struggling to find form, especially when the future of the man who fills out the teamsheet is also up in the air.

Managing this process will be Melton, with some help from newly appointed football director Gary Cole. The pressure is also on those two to get it right. Sydney's season could be defined by results over the next few weeks, and there will be a lot of unhappy fans if the season is allowed to slip away. Crowds this season are up a whopping 63 per cent, which is a real bright spot for the new administration led by Melton. But Sydney is a notoriously fickle market, and the casual supporters need a reason to believe. Melton says running a professional sporting club ''can't just be about wins and losses''. He's right. But running a successful sporting business is about providing a clear sense of direction. And that, always, makes the tough decisions the most important ones. Clearly Sydney have a few tough decisions to make, and soon.

In the meantime, what's most important is that the leadership players - Nicky Carle, Brett Emerton, Pascal Bosschaart and Terry McFlynn - set the right example and guide the team through the sticky patch. In the past four games, that leadership hasn't always been evident. The trip to Brisbane to play the champions this weekend will tell us a lot about whether the Sky Blues are going to flatter to deceive. Again.