Crystal Palace lack a backbone. Not just the kind that gives teams a strong mentality but the spine upon which all successful sides are built. Sam Allardyce doesn't have a great deal of time to find it, but doing so might go some way to getting the club out of the mire it finds itself in.
Last Saturday's 4-0 defeat, a shuddering five-minute capitulation before half time at the hands of fellow relegation strugglers Sunderland, should be enough to prompt drastic change in Allardyce's thinking. This is a side so bereft of confidence, so lacking in a spine, that changes will need to be made to give the side a hope of surviving.