The trouble is, I really feel Sykes is a major weak link. He's clearly a talented player, but physically, he's nowhere near strong enough to play at this level.
I've never known us have so many key players out injured at the same time, and there's no escaping the fact we're suffering a major injury crisis, and while we wait for players to recover, we need to batten down the hatches, make ourselves hard to beat, whilst still having adequate attacking threats, and I feel having Long at RB, with Cadden on the RW, provides us with the strength we'll need with and without the ball all up and down that right side.
In the meantime, Sykes needs to get himself in the gym, and beef himself up, or he won't make the grade, and fulfil his obvious potential.
Yesterday, for the 1st half Sykes was the only one who showed any creativity and imo he coped reasonably well physically yesterday. He did have moments when he was knocked off the ball but then there were times he gave it back so I don't have any particular concerns on that score. Rarely for him, Fosu got knocked off the ball far more yesterday.