[OldburyWBA]

Sam got it very wrong today. 2 inexcuseable decisions involving Sawyers and Pereira

Picked our very own sleeping beauty at DCM again when he didnt need too. Sadly for us Sawyers performances there are a regular nightmare not a Disney dream. I've said hes a liability for months and months now but he's a monster magnet for defensive disasters.

Left Pereira out. Insane. Looked much better for the  last 11 minutes he was on and injury time.

Diagne is what we were told he is. Looks out of the game for most of it but very dangerous in the area. Just needs to stay onside more.

All our fullbacks are rubbish. Karlan Grant looks like he could do well there.

Okay put himself about in his appearance but won some headers and got some tackles in, some unfairly too.  Must play from the start for me.

Ajayi not a disaster today.

Dont pick Sawyers and likely get a point.

He's not a defensive midfielder, Bilic and Allardyce both deserve a slap for playing him there, he's never played there before he came here, he can't tackle so why persist with it. Congrats to both for ruining the career of a player highly rated by many of his peers until he rejoined his boyhood club.

[gazberg]

Absolutely baffled as to why they select him there!

I gave Sam the benefit of the doubt until today as this is Bilic squad and yes we are well short in CM so he's had to pick Sawyers at times but we have OKAY in now. He may not be fully fit but if i can amtch Sawyers work rate i'm sure OKAY can.

The other issue as you said is that Sawyers will be mentally destroyed now. Who knows what we will get from him in the EFL.

[boinging_along]

Well I saw them. I saw a quite a few to be fair.

I didn’t see a game of hoofball either

To be fair, is it hoof ball if we never get on the end of it or are they just "clearances"?  And what about the long freekicks we aim forward? I don't know how they get classed.

20% of all our passes was classed as "long", compared to 5% is Spurs'.  1 in every 5 times we got the ball we hit it long.  The back 4 and keeper responsible for 51 out of 64 of our long balls.

[OldburyWBA]

Absolutely baffled as to why they select him there!

I gave Sam the benefit of the doubt until today as this is Bilic squad and yes we are well short in CM so he's had to pick Sawyers at times but we have OKAY in now. He may not be fully fit but if i can amtch Sawyers work rate i'm sure OKAY can.

The other issue as you said is that Sawyers will be mentally destroyed now. Who knows what we will get from him in the EFL.

Thing is the lazy tag is something that has always followed him round yet he's doing exactly the same now as he has done throughout his career, he's doing the same now as he was when he first came, even Sky Sports did an interview with him at Brentford about him being the most laid back player around.

[gazberg]

Thing is the lazy tag is something that has always followed him round yet he's doing exactly the same now as he has done throughout his career, he's doing the same now as he was when he first came, even Sky Sports did an interview with him at Brentford about him being the most laid back player around.

I know this is his style/level of effort, as you say its well known to be so why do both of them persevere with him when they know hes not upto it? Allardyce had ane xcuse until today. To pick him when he didnt need too has cost us.

[boinging_along]

I know this is his style/level of effort, as you say its well known to be so why do both of them persevere with him when they know hes not upto it? Allardyce had ane xcuse until today. To pick him when he didnt need too has cost us.

If Okay wasn't fit to start then I'd rather have seen Livermore in there than Sawyers.  If we don't have much possession then Sawyers is the least effective of the two.

[gazberg]

If Okay wasn't fit to start then I'd rather have seen Livermore in there than Sawyers.  If we don't have much possession then Sawyers is the least effective of the two.

I find it hard to advocate for either of them to be fair.

I would have just played CG and AMN with Pereira.

[alex1]

Sawyers is not the reason we lost. We lost the match because we didn't go to win and we kept our best player and top scorer on the bench until the 80th minute. Given the amount of chances Spurs created we were bound to concede at some stage. It would have been a
fluke if we had got any points with those tactics. 

[gerry m]

Sawyers is not the reason we lost. We lost the match because we didn't go to win and we kept our best player and top scorer on the bench until the 80th minute. Given the amount of chances Spurs created we were bound to concede at some stage. It would have been a
fluke if we had got any points with those tactics.

His comments when asked 'It's a must win game' he replied its a no lose game sums him up.

[Ross]

Sawyers is not the reason we lost. We lost the match because we didn't go to win and we kept our best player and top scorer on the bench until the 80th minute. Given the amount of chances Spurs created we were bound to concede at some stage. It would have been a
fluke if we had got any points with those tactics.

Exactly this. We needed to win. To not even try and expect our defence to keep a clean sheet is baffling. No matter who you are playing, you need to give yourself a chance of winning. We are conceding goals either way!

[beechyboy90]

Periera has to play every game we are nothing without him
Surely he knew peltier wasnt good enough. If he wasnt happy with furlong or oshea at full back he should have signed a right back.

Still conceding 2 a game which pretty much gives us no chance of getting anything from the game.

We are down. Big sam wont last until March, we will do what we did last time instead of Darren Moore the club will give morrison the interim job

[GREGMT]

It was absolute garbage from minute 10 to minute 90.

You could see Tottenham were nervous, lacking in confidence, had no intent from 3 successive losses.

As soon as they realised WBA were there for the taking it was one way traffic.

Allardyce has added nothing, I would be better as the Manager myself.

[hardtobeat]

3points from safety when he arrived , double figures now , we need to win games by leaving Perriera on the bench playing your 3rd choice r/b isn’t the way to go about it . Don’t think he’s lost the dressing room because I’m not sure he ever had it !

[NJS]

We must keep Allardyce to the end of his contract.  Don't want him lounging around on severance pay^*.  At the end of the season, it will be clear he couldn't keep us up despite his reputation.  Glad for him that he thinks it's all very amusing.

Diagne doesn't seem to have a clue about the offside rule,  He doesn't move our with his marker before the cross ball is struck.  Planted one straight at the keeper in the first half.  Still it's early days and he's big so that's the main thing for BS, isn't it?   

^*No harm in looking for a replacement now,

[PartisanBaggie]

We are down. Big sam wont last until March, we will do what we did last time instead of Darren Moore the club will give morrison the interim job

Alas, the WBA hamster wheel. Round and round we go! 😆

[chipperclark]

We must keep Allardyce to the end of his contract.  Don't want him lounging around on severance pay^*.  At the end of the season, it will be clear he couldn't keep us up despite his reputation.  Glad for him that he thinks it's all very amusing.

Diagne doesn't seem to have a clue about the offside rule,  He doesn't move our with his marker before the cross ball is struck.  Planted one straight at the keeper in the first half.  Still it's early days and he's big so that's the main thing for BS, isn't it?   

^*No harm in looking for a replacement now,

Sam has a "bone" to pick with Albion from past events. He was fired back in the 80s.....and I am guessing may have come back to haunt us I hope not but picking our best player on the bench and giving him 9 minutes is a traversty and disgraceful.

[boinging_along]

The Spurs defender was pretty good today - he pushed Diagne offside, and then muscled him to keep him there.   Shame our defence don't learn from that and instead we give strikers a guard of honour through on goal.

[gazberg]

Lovely blokes our defenders. Can ask everyone who has played against them if you dont believe me.

[mulliganstired]

For the first time I can remember (and I am a 70s Baggie) I genuinely forgot the KO time and missed the start of the game.  Even when we were in the third division, even when Pulis/Pardew was at its worst, I always knew when we were playing, usually to brace myself for yet another disappointment tbh, but that was a new low for me.  Really depressing.

[Hunnington Baggie]

For the first time I can remember (and I am a 70s Baggie) I genuinely forgot the KO time and missed the start of the game.  Even when we were in the third division, even when Pulis/Pardew was at its worst, I always knew when we were playing, usually to brace myself for yet another disappointment tbh, but that was a new low for me.  Really depressing.

so did I, but that’s because the days are starting to meld together from Covid and lockdown. I barely have a grasp on what day it is today let alone what day and time I’m supposed to do something.

[halifax_baggie]

so did I, but that’s because the days are starting to meld together from Covid and lockdown. I barely have a grasp on what day it is today let alone what day and time I’m supposed to do something.

Much like the baggies defence then

[Atomic]

For the first time I can remember (and I am a 70s Baggie) I genuinely forgot the KO time and missed the start of the game. 

Hi Fabian. How are you mate? 😄

[Hull Baggie]

I missed the first 30 mins as I thought it was a later kick off. Anyway, only listened to it on Talksport and then watched highlights on MOTD.

Couldn't believe Pereira was left out of starting 11 especially as he's been recently hitting some decent form (thought he was pretty poor at Sheff Utd) and also starting Sawyers at DM (he's not a Pl standard midfielder, never mind a defensive midfielder). Those two decisions had a large part in how the game played out. First half we defended stubbornly but created very little and Diagne should really have scored right at the end, a good save by Loris but it was straight at him.

Second half we defended poorly for the goals and never looked like getting back into it until Spurs took their foot off the gas. Diagne took his goals well but sadly both were offside. As others have said he needs to be more aware of that going forward.

Pereira should have started, Sawyers should have been on the bench (at best).

Sounded like AMN and Yokuslu were decent which is a small crumb of comfort to take forward, along with the fact that Diagne at least put the ball in the net.

[SmethDan]

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.

[mulliganstired]

so did I, but that’s because the days are starting to meld together from Covid and lockdown. I barely have a grasp on what day it is today let alone what day and time I’m supposed to do something.

Yes, could be the lockdown effect as well