I think a lot depends on how you define the word "struggle". I simply mean every match is going to be a tough battle. We look at the opposition in advance to try and assess the threat, but - as we found last season - it isn't always the "best" teams who give you the most problems.
The issues you've outlined about Dack on the other thread are a particular worry, but I'm reasonably hopeful that TM will keep him on the straight and narrow, in terms of the football itself. He has never shown any signs of his "lifestyle" in games so far, but you seem to have some knowledge that more has gone wrong than has been made public.
The simple fact is - and I suspect Despair will support this - if you're going to follow football and your club, you have to make an embarrassing agreement with yourself to turn a blind eye to the fact that many footballers are arrogant pillocks with no sense of the real world. I try to avoid reading about the private lives of sports-people, anyway, because a) I detest this whole "celebrity" thing, and b) I'm not in the least bit interested in what they do off the pitch.
Unfortunately, in the "Age of Twitter", I am in a dwindling minority - mainly composed of grumpy old men.
I get equally brassed off when I read that so-and-so couldn't play because "his head wasn't in the right place". Fine - put him in a factory on a 50-hour week to see if that clears his thoughts!