Without touching on what negative effects the transfers, coaching, injuries, tactics or anything else might have had, we lost that intangible feeling of everyone being in it together over the summer. Staveley and Mehrdad leaving, tensions within the new setup, players apparently being offered to other clubs for PSR reasons - all of that upset whatever momentum was left after last season (not much admittedly). It feels like a completely different club, with a completely different feeling around the place, to the season we finished 4th.
But the transfers, coaching, injuries and tactics can and should all rightly be questioned, even ridiculed at this point.