It’s ridiculous to judge Sanches on one Swans game
WE live in an era of professional sport where if you win you are great and if you lose you are not far off a full-blown crisis.
Was it always like this? No, not really.
Twitter, Facebook and the media industry itself all play a part in that.
In an age of instant reaction and opinion it has become the norm, even demanded.
Renato Sanches, possibly the most exciting signing in Swansea City’s history, was a victim of this immediate judgement on Sunday.
Jamie Redknapp in the Sky Sports studio, along with former Newcastle manager Alan Pardew, were particularly scathing of the Portuguese.
At half-time Redknapp said the 20-year-old was, to borrow a phrase from footballing parlance, “having one”.
Later, following the full-time whistle, he added: “I called him the signing of the window and I stand by it.
“He is going to be a player but he was off it today. He did some little bits and pieces that were very good and the rest will come. He gave the ball away a few too many times.
“Paul Clement’s biggest job with this kid is to build his confidence again. You can see his confidence has been shattered while he has been at Bayern Munich.
“He was one of the best young players in the world a couple of years ago but his confidence is now low.”
Pardew agreed. “I’m not doubting he’s a fantastic player but sometimes when you are a manager and bring in a big name, it’s about getting the timing right,” he added.
“Clement probably thought he would be at a better speed coming from Bayern Munich but he was not up to speed.”
But how could he be? The youngster only arrived in South Wales on Friday, trained for the second time with his new team-mates on Saturday and was playing his first game of Premier League football just 24 hours later.
“He looked sharp [in training],” said Leon Britton, a man who knows a thing or two about midfield play.
“He only trained two days but you can see the quality he’s got. The difference is in training to the intensity of the Premier League, it’s different.
“Maybe the manager has spoken to Carlo Ancelotti and he thought he’d be ready for today.”
So was Paul Clement wrong to thrust Sanches into the fray right off the bat?
With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps a bench role may have been the better option, but you can also see the rationale behind starting him from the off.
He played in midweek for Portugal Under-21s, and Clement no doubt wanted to harness the feel-good factor buzzing round the Liberty, hoping the youngster would feed off the atmosphere. And in patches he did. He was heavily involved from the first whistle. The ball came to him like a ball bearing to a magnet.
There were neat touches here, a roar-inducing spin out of danger there, but overall he wasn’t quite on the same wavelength as his teammates.
One person on Twitter said he probably didn’t even know his colleagues’ names yet.
But on the evidence of Sunday you’d have thought they were all strangers, not just Sanches.
From front to back, Lukasz Fabianski aside, Swansea were disjointed, lacklustre and second best.
If criticism is levelled, it should not all fall at Sanches’s door.
The stats on the loan man don’t lie. Before he was replaced by Wilfried Bony he was dispossessed several times (14 instances in the first 28 minutes, to be precise) and was almost playing as a secondary rightback at points.
It is difficult to pull the positives from those figures.
He will have to heed the advice of Britton and his coaches at Fairwood this week.
Whether playing for Bayern Munich or for Portugal, Sanches is afforded more time on the ball; Premier League midfielders just don’t allow you that commodity.
But that is exactly what Swansea fans and pundits should grant him.
This is the starlet who was the toast of European football last summer. He does not become a bad player after an indifferent 69-minute debut.
The kneejerk assessments of the amateur and professional pundit need to be reined in — they are unnecessarily harsh.
Let’s re-visit this after 10 games.