Our squad was "pretty much intact"?
We basically lost our entire strikerforce in Owen, Martins and Viduka, we lost arguably two of our best defenders in Beye and Bassong as well as losing Duff, who like it or not, was our most productive midfielder last season going by goals and assists (IIRC, not sure on that one). That is six first team players, or more than half a team, who were lost and not replaced. The only part we "managed" to keep somewhat intact was our s**** midfield, which we all would have said needed strengthening, even for this division, and that didn't happen either. I'd say we had every right to expect us to struggle with the team we had going into this season.
Then our squad was bigger and better equipped then we all thought.