After Barcelona’s home defeat by Celta Vigo on Saturday night, their coach, Luis Enrique, declared the hunting season open. “We’re in for a nice week,” he said, sarcasm infusing his words. A few metres away Dani Alves was talking. “A truckload of criticism is going to land on us now,” the defender remarked, while outside a small number of fans had gathered by the directors’ box chanting that this is the “worst board in history”. A banner declaring much the same had already been removed from the stands.  Barcelona had just been beaten for the second time in a week and failed to score at home for the first time in 56 games, even though they had been able to start with the forward line that so excited them: Leo Messi, Neymar and Luis Suárez. The response to Suárez’s performances has been positive but the stats are stark: eight league wins out of eight without him, two defeats in a row with him.  Now Suárez makes his Champions League debut for Barcelona, against a former club, Ajax. He describes Ajax as a “footballing school” that made him a real player after he had arrived from Uruguay via Groningen with “technical failings”, and the reception will be a warm one. “It will be a strange feeling, but I have to give everything for Barcelona,” he said.  He will have to: the job to be done is an important one. Barcelona need a win after a week of damaging reverses, with the team losing to Real Madrid and then Celta and the club losing a court case to the former president Joan Laporta, once again opening up divisions at a club with a terrible tendency for internecine conflict.  Another defeat on Wednesday in Amsterdam would deepen their problems. It would leave Barcelona just one point in front of the Dutch side in second place in the group and would give PSG the chance to extend the lead over them to four points. Barcelona’s prospects of winning the group would be slight and their chances of facing a big team in the knock-out stage increased – and right now, few believe that this team would progress against Europe’s strongest sides. Confidence is waning. Bodies are too: the defender Jérémy Mathieu will be out for three weeks.  Things have changed fast. “Two days ago [people said] Barça were the best,” joked Johan Cruyff. “When you’re up there, the fall is harder.” They had begun the season with eight wins and had not conceded a single goal in the league. But in a week they lost twice and conceded four times. What was a six-point lead over Real Madrid is now a two-point deficit. There had been doubts before – not least because they had been well beaten by Paris Saint-Germain in the French capital, a game many considered their only real test up to that point – but those had been muffled. Now the volume has been turned up.  Barcelona had been unfortunate against Celta. They hit the frame of the goal four times, the Celta goalkeeper Sergio Álvarez made nine saves in total, and Luis Enrique had a point when he said that he would happily settle for them creating that many chances every match.  But Javier Mascherano admitted that they had not played well and there was a sense of them losing their identity. The control had gone. One newspaper called them “headless chickens”. The white noise that swirls round the board of directors, their legitimacy more questioned than ever, makes it worse.  In terms of points, this is their worst league start in seven years and they have not been as low as fourth after 10 games for 20 years. There is a debate about the style again and the coach is under pressure. Suárez admitted Barcelona had played more directly than they wanted to against Celta. The question is whether that is a one-off or a more systematic shift.  There are other doubts, too: Gerard Piqué watched the Celta game from the stands; Sergio Busquets’ form has dropped alarmingly over the past six months; Xavi Hernández plays then does not; and Andrés Iniesta is injured.  Some failings are familiar: 96 corners this season have yielded no goals. Other debates are new. One focuses on the best way to fit in Suárez. Messi seemed to be playing deeper, preparing for Suárez’s arrival. But when he came in, the Argentinian moved back up front, with the former Liverpool player on the right. Some are wondering what the point is, although Suárez says he can play across the front “like I did with Ajax and Liverpool”.  “It’s not a problem of Neymar, Messi and I, it’s about all of us,” he said. “It is hard to accept when you get beaten but we know the demands that there are here: we know that it is normal for there be criticism after two defeats. But we have to forget the losses and improve. The good thing about football is that it always gives you a chance for revenge.”
Barcelona need a victory against Ajax after league defeats in Luis Suárez’s first two games for the club