He's not the only one though, is he? It seems to fuck everyone (apart from Fulham back in 2010).
Correlation isn't causation though. The main problem I have with your idea is that most of the British teams that have started in the earliest rounds aren't actually that good to begin with.
You're talking about clubs who, in the main, qualified by fluking a cup runner's up place, finished 7th or lower, or worst of all qualified through the fair play league. Does starting seasons early every year hinder Celtic? Not really. Did it hurt Liverpool in 05-06? No. Is the Europa League hurting Arsenal? Arguably not.
When it's a good (or relatively good) team starting early or being in the Europa doesn't hinder league performances all that much really.
It's too easy to just blame the added games or Thursday night matches. It's more complicated than that. Added games are part of it, obviously, but they're something we'll need to learn to deal with if we crack the top 4 anyway.
We came into this season missing 3 of our best players - a quarter of last season's starting line up - having not particularly replaced any of them. We had a dreadful opening run of fixtures and a manager who was still getting to grips with his best team.
There are loads of factors behind our poor start. Still we've, give or take, generally picked up points in the games we'd "expect" to as well. I wouldn't let what happened this season put us off starting early again next season personally.