Football fans can often be over optimistic and over pessimistic about their team's chances. To get an objective point of view, it's always worth seeing where people's money is going. Betfair currently has us at 8.2 to be relegated, with 8 teams at shorter odds (Bolton and Blackpool are odds on). We're currently at shorter odds of 4.6 to finish in the top six and odds on (1.7) to finish in the top 12.
Presumably if we pick up a win or two after the break (not impossible) we'd be coasting towards the playoffs again. because if we do we'd be doing better than we were last season (with Ulloa) at this stage . In 2013 we also started poorly goals /results wise and played well against promoted teams (QPR, Burnley). Just like now. And had runs of form similar to now until it picked up from November onwards.
Perhaps not and perhaps we'll keep DDLLDD etc in which case I suspect Sami will be off. And even then relegation is a long way off...