Puzzled when I saw the lineup, the inclusion of Sawyers and the omission of Pereira. We know Romaine's strengths and weaknesses so I genuinely thought Sawyers would be playing a more advanced role rather than not screening the back four (again).
Much has been made of him switching off to allow Kane in on goal. But a feature of the radio match commentary was that Kane had the freedom of the pitch for pretty much the whole of the first half. Romaine put challenges in during the first half as commented upon in the match thread but there was clearly a lack of tracking from our midfield unit and defence as a whole.
This should have been addressed in the opening 45 minutes from the touchline and if not then by those on the pitch. I'm not sure at which point professional footballers should be told they need to track one of the best all round forwards in the Premier League but ours clearly need reminding.
This is a collective failure and not just an individual one. Wrong selection of a player in a role he's clearly unsuited to. Insufficient communication, cover and common sense between teammates. Failure to replace said player with one more suited to the role at half time. That we had to wait so long for Yokuslu's introduction to knit things together beggars belief.
Snodgrass was the main culprit Dan, but got away with them because the chances weren't taken. Sawyers was poor but didn't do anything unexpected so have to question his inclusion. We all no he has no instinct to track a runner.
Allardyce's plan seems to be defend until they score and that's it so, best case scenario is a heroic, fortunate 0-0 as, once they do score he has no plan B.
Have to get things in perspective though, bad run or no bad run, if we are expecting to win at Spurs, we are seriously misguided. They have quality all over the pitch and would beat us on a good day.
I'm just accepting now that this season is a write off but am still looking forward to next.