With its sandy beaches, rich cuisine and lively town centre, San Sebastían is a lovely place to live. Unless, that is, you are the manager of a Real Sociedad team suffering the club’s worst start to a season since 2006/07, the only year in the last half a century that Real Sociedad suffered relegation from Spain’s top flight.

David Moyes is currently the man in that unenviable position, but for how much longer is unclear. The Scot suffered yet another agonising defeat on Saturday evening, this time going down 3-2 in stoppage time to a far-from-impressive Espanyol side.

That the latest setback to "Project Moyes" came at Real Sociedad’s Anoeta home was particularly unfortunate as the former Manchester United and Everton manager was the subject of whistles, jeers and calls to join the recently departed summer tourists in packing his bags for home. The Monday morning headline of the regional edition of sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo was just as intimidating with its one word summation of the situation: Tension.

For now, Moyes remains in charge at the club he joined just last November, aided by the fact his sacking would cost £3.2m, a not insubstantial expenditure for a club which has just completed a £22m record summer of transfer spending and which has a £29m stadium redevelopment pencilled in for next summer.

However, should results, and the timidly defensive performances, fail to improve then club president Jokin Aperribay will have little choice but to sign the cheque that would see a second manager depart the Anoeta dugout within 12 months. Jagoba Arrasate was lambasted by fans after last season’s poor start, but his win percentage of 36.36% actually compares favourably with Moyes’s 30.30%. Arrasate even contested 12 fixtures in, theoretically more difficult, European competition.

Tonight’s league fixture away to Granada and Sunday’s must-not-lose derby at home to Basque rivals Athletic Bilbao combine to make this the most important week in Moyes’s Real Sociedad career.

It will be the third time Moyes faces Granada and his current friction with the fanbase can be traced back to his last meeting with the Andalusian side, a 3-0 home defeat in the penultimate week of last season. That he was unable to squeeze anything other than a lacklustre performance out of his squad for the final home match of the season provoked the first meaningful jeers of his tenure from the crowd and the performance was described by the next day’s Mundo Deportivo as, “shameful,” and, “apathetic.”

The summer arrival of big name players such as Elche’s 14-goal striker Jonathas and promising 20-year-old winger Bruma from Galatasaray were supposed to help solve Moyes’s attacking quandaries, while the homecoming of holding midfielder Asier Illarramendi following two seasons at Real Madrid was the jewel in a stellar summer transfer window.

If anything, however, Real Sociedad have become even more sterile in attack, having scored just two goals and taken just two points from a very favourable opening four fixtures – against two newly promoted sides and two consistently bottom half sides.

Next up is the trip to Granada, another winnable-on-paper fixture, yet Moyes travels with the difficulty of having his number one goalkeeper Gerónimo Rulli suspended and his on-loan number two Oier Olazabal only able to play against his parent club Granada should Real pay a fee of 100,000 euros, a decision they will leave to the last minute.

Olazabal featured in the 3-2 defeat against Espanyol following Rulli’s red card, but his performance was criticised by Moyes, who told the media that, “Oier should have saved the third goal.”

That the Scot threw his player under the bus will not have helped his already-depreciating reputation in the dressing room; players are unimpressed with Moyes’s poor level of Spanish and, according to journalist Oier Fano Dadebat, see him as a, “diva,” as he continues to live in the prestigious María Cristina Hotel at the club’s expense ten months after his arrival.

During the build-up to the Espanyol fixture, midfielder David Zurutuza spoke to Noticias De Gipuzkoa, saying : “We have to change something. I don’t know if it’s something tactical or if it’s us players, but there is something which isn’t working.” If that sounds like an attack on the manager then that is because it probably was, yet Zurutuza’s comments were not the only ones causing Moyes a headache this past week.

Star striker, and the face of the club, Carlos Vela suggested that he may depart in the next transfer window, possibly to leave for the MLS. “Until January I will continue, happy at Real” he said. “Would I leave then? In each transfer window there are options to leave.”

With disgruntled players and a goalkeeping crisis, a loss in Granada would be both unsurprising and unforgivable and could extend Moyes’s poor run to just two wins in 15. That run cannot be explained by the vagaries of form and the club’s directive could be forced to act before Sunday’s derby.

Moyes could be gone before he can say uno, dos, tres.