I seem to remember that lots seemed to be going wrong in pre season after Allardyce left (injuries, and players heads being turned, Kaboul, Kone, then not getting M'vila etc). I got the feeling at the time that the spine of our team just got torn out. The run we had under Allardyce at the end of the previous season may have just papered over the usual cracks, they were punching above their weight. Or we could have finished mid table, we will never know. After Allardyce left the next manager in was always gonna struggle. I admit Moyes was terrible, but the tools he had at his disposal were terrible. The players we hung our hats on under Allardyce were not as trustworthy once he left. So Moyes replaced them with crap unfortunately.