How much more of this can Philip Clarke take? Besieged by former directors grumbling about strategic mistakes, and City analysts telling him to cut prices properly rather than fiddle with a few products, Tesco's chief executive knows his only certain escape is to show an improvement in UK sales.
If the latest Kantar data are correct, he's miles away from achieving that. Gone are the days when it was thought impossible that Tesco's market share would ever fall below 30%. Tesco is put at 29%, down 1.5 percentage points from a year ago. The momentum in the market remains with Lidl and, especially, Aldi.
HSBC's David McCarthy, who has been bearish on the above three supermarkets for ages, sees no end in sight. "We remain underweight on the sector and believe things will get worse before they get much worse."
Clarke will on Wednesdayunveil weak first-quarter trading numbers and, presumably, will continue to argue that a £200m investment in "sharper prices" and a shift to being "a multichannel seamless connected business" remains the correct strategy. It amounts to a plea to investors to be patient. The mood music says he's got about a year – tops – to show evidence of improvement.
