Seven of Allardyce's summer signings graced (if that is the right word) the pitch on Saturday in the humiliation against Liverpool.
A match Shay Given described as "the worst performance in ten years".
And Mort insists there will be no influx of new players in January, despite Big Sam insisting he wants the purse strings opened.
This is the biggest hint yet that there has been a meeting behind the scenes between Mike Ashley and Chris Mort, and Sam is most certainly under pressure.
Ashley hasn't got where he is today by sitting on his backside and letting others under perform, and Sam had better get it right and cut out the excuses.
Earlier defeats in the season were met with "we play too many games", when the high flyers were involved in Europe (and the League Cup) and we simply had the Premiership to deal with.
Then the horror show at Man City was (as Sam put it) the result of no football for a fortnight because of the international break.
Blackburn and Arsenal (are next opponents) are in Europe this week, so Sam has NO excuses this time around.
Alardyce: "All the other Premier League clubs are spending heavily, more than ever before, and that increases the quality in the division.
"You have to try to live with that. You do that slowly, by building slowly. Finding players is the hardest thing to do."
Mort: "We need to get our team performing on the pitch as a unit and I don't necessarily think that new players will sort that out.