View: West Brom senior player exposed horribly v Spurs as baffling Big Sam decision backfires
In the latest line of strange selections by Sam Allardyce, forgotten man Lee Peltier was picked to start as West Brom took on the world-class talents of Tottenham Hotspur.
As is the case for pretty much every game Albion play now this was must-win.
Unfortunately, Big Sam seemingly viewed it as ‘must not lose or get hammered’.
There were a whole host of peculiar decisions made by the veteran boss with main man Matheus Pereira dropped to the bench but another eyebrow-raiser was the inclusion of 34-year-old Peltier.
This is a player that joined Albion in the middle of their promotion-winning campaign and failed to make an appearance in the Championship.
His only other Premier League start this season was in the 5-0 thrashing to Leeds United on December 29 while he was a part of the side that was humiliated by Blackpool in the FA Cup, so why was he starting directly up against Son Heung-min at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday afternoon?
Sure, Big Sam might point to the experience and solidity Peltier can offer given his advanced years and physical presence.
But Albion were not playing against a team who were going to lump the ball into the box.
The likes of Son and Lucas Moura thrive on exploiting space in behind defences and they must have been licking their lips at the prospect of facing Peltier.
It was no surprise to see both goals coming down Albion’s right side.
As you can see from the image below three of Albion’s back four are pretty much in line with each other on the edge of the box but one man is missing – Peltier.
Instead of lining up with his back four, he has been dragged out of position after following the run of Spurs left back Ben Davies which creates the space for a simple pass through to Harry Kane who finished with aplomb to open the scoring.
Blame can be attached to other players but Peltier made an unnecessary decision to track the run of a player who was going into a crowded area of the pitch and we think he should have tucked back into shape and recognised the main danger.
The next images are not as bad on his part but reflect poorly from Big Sam and reiterates what we have said about his lack of pace and mobility up against Lucas.
The above clip shows Lucas racing away on a Spurs counter-attack with Peltier at the bottom of the screen.
Given the distance, he has left to travel and the fact he is having to control the ball one would expect a Premier League full-back to have the athleticism to recover and catch up with Lucas.
Unfortunately as you can see Peltier gets nowhere near the Brazilian and he eventually plays in Son who scores the second goal of the game to all-but wrap up the three points.
Big Sam must be apportioned the blame for this with his failure to recognise that Peltier is not cut out at this level, especially considering the demands of a modern full-back.
On that note, he offered nothing going forwards with zero dribbles (out of one attempted) and a 0% offensive duel rate (0/2), per Wyscout.
He only made one pass to the final third (20% accuracy) and misplaced seven forward passes, while he lost possession of the ball eight times in total.
We do not want to be too critical of Peltier but he is clearly way out of his depth at Premier League level.
Allardyce must drop this notion that experienced heads equal solidity on the field.
Darnell Furlong and Dara O’Shea may not be superstars and certainly have shown their downfalls this season but surely they offer more than Peltier down the right.
Given the inevitable demise back down to the Championship these younger players need more of an opportunity.
In other West Brom news, Nigel Quashie makes Matheus Pereira plea to Big Sam.
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