Agreed.
They were ahead of us last year and have all improved their squads far better than we did in the summer. In addition three of them have upgraded their managers and the other 3 already have world class managers in place.
If we were to play catch up, then we needed to on board a class GK, CB, CM,  playmaker and support striker during the summer. The latter two positions were an absolute priority, and our failure in this regard is why Saturday's result will be replicated more than once throughout the rest of the season.
With the current squad, 7th is the best we can aim for, and a distant 7th at that. That's not being negative. In fact I think it's quite positive given the relative squads.
However I'm not in the camp that feels it's all doom and gloom. I believe that Mosh will back Walsh/ Koeman over the next couple of transfer windows, albeit we may need to go after the players with potential rather than the finished article. Our standing isn't quite there yet. Plus I believe that it will take longer for Koeman to demartinezize (that should be a new word for the concise Oxford!!) or replace the existing players and inject his own style on the club. It will take a minimum of 2 transfer windows but I'm confident he'll get there.
In the meantime we just need to be both realistic and patient. I know that's hard as we've been starved of success for so long and our expectations coming into this season were so high. Or mine were at least.