Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
HE’S A LITTLE BOY LOST AT THE LIBERTY
FOR Portuguese whizz-kid Renato Sanches this was a rude awakening on a day to forget for his new team.
The young Bayern Munich starlet was a shock deadline-day acquisition by Swansea head coach Paul Clement, his arrival on loan the sort of signing the Welsh club could only have dreamed about in years gone by.
But on a grey, wet September afternoon in South Wales, his first game in the
Premier League was, if not quite a disaster, far from the start fans were expecting.
The Liberty Stadium is a long way from the bright lights of the Bundesliga, but with Clement having lost both playmaker Gylfi Sigurdsson and Spanish striker Fernando Llorente in the summer window, Swansea are looking to Sanches – as well as Wilfried Bony – to fill the void.
Yesterday, it didn’t happen.
Sanches was a bit-part figure and, while there is surely more to come from a man widely regarded as one of Europe’s best young talents, this was an inauspicious start to his Premier League career.
“I thought Renato did some good things, but he also did some things that were not so good,” Clement said. “There was a lot of expectation around him, which is normal.
“But he is a player who will get better the more he gets to know his teammates and the more he understands our system and culture. He was OK.”
The Portugal international, a European Championship winner, was replaced in the second half by fellow new signing Bony and received words of support from Clement as he left the field.
Just six minutes later, and with Sanches now watching from the bench, Swansea fell behind to a header from Jamaal Lascelles.
It completed a thoroughly disappointing afternoon for the Welsh fans.
On a day which promised so much for Swansea and Sanches, both parties went home disappointed.
Welcome to the Premier League, Renato.