Spending lots of money doesn't equate to being higher up the table!! There's plenty of examples of this like ermm, us last season!
We've won 1 in 5 so far.
That said, we have dominated matches and had the most shots on target in the whole league.
I think the season is long enough and there is enough dross for us to beat and get top 6.
Automatic I would deem as unlikely, there are better teams than us in this league. But there isn't 6 better teams than us.