Former Dublin All-Ireland winner Barry Cahill believes Dessie Farrell's side are facing into a "tricky" few weeks after starting off their Allianz Football League campaign with a defeat to Armagh.
It was their first competitive fixture since last year's All-Ireland semi-final loss to Mayo and has led to a sense that their previous "aura" may be deserting them.
Cahill believes Dublin will not be pressing the panic button in the wake of Saturday's setback at Croke Park but feels the performance was nowhere near the required standard.
"I wouldn't be too alarmed just yet. Certainly on Saturday night the performance wasn't up to scratch and it was a very disappointing result," he said on RTÉ's Game On.
"Particularly the first-half performance, the guys never got out of the blocks and didn't really look well tuned in for the game.
"Armagh came with a well-conditioned team, well-coached team and they fully deserved their victory."
The pressure will not let-up for Dublin with a trip to Tralee to face great rivals Kerry this weekend and Cahill believes the level of competition in the top division of the league, coupled with the short turnaround to the championship, makes any attempt at transition more challenging.
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"For Dublin at the moment, it's a bit of a tricky situation for Dessie Farrell and his management team," he said.
"It's been well documented over the past 12-18 months, that they've lost so many multiple All-Ireland winners and experienced guys who've done it and been there for the last 10 years or so and it's never going to be easy trying to replace those guys.
"I think for Dessie over the next few weeks it's going to be difficult because Division 1 this year seems very, very competitive and it's very condensed in terms of there are going to be seven matches in a nine-week period.
"It doesn't give you a huge amount of time to experiment and on the back of last year's All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Mayo, I think it was well documented that Dublin did need to find a few more players and to try and strengthen the bench in particular because that was one of Dublin's main strengths during the Jim Gavin era.
"So for Dessie to try and strengthen that bench he's going to have to guys game time but it's so cut-throat Division 1 this year that if you don't have a very strong team out you can come out on the wrong side of a bad enough beating."
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