Swansea fans would have been rubbing their hands with delight when the news that Bayern Munich midfielder Renato Sanches was coming to the club on loan was confirmed during the summer.
The Portuguese earned a mega-money move to the German giants with his seriously impressive performances for his country as they won Euro 2016, on the back of a season where he earned rave review for Benfica, but it's quite clear that so far the goods have not been as described.
Sanches suffered a tough year at Bayern as Carlo Ancelotti deemed him not ready for regular first-team football, so he would have been hoping that working under former Bayern coach Paul Clement at Swansea could kick-start his career, but that does not look like happening as he has failed to show much at all despite featuring in all but three of Swansea's Premier League games thus far.
Clement defended Sanches from criticism levelled at him by Robbie Savage and Tim Sherwood on BT Sport at the weekend and picked him to start against Chelsea on Wednesday night, but a misplaced pass from Sanches in the first-half drew a reaction from his manager that sums up his Premier League career up to this point.
Sanches takes the ball, has a look to see where the defenders are, and then passes the ball to the Carabao Cup advertising board. The cameras picked up Clement's reaction, and it said it all.
The Swansea boss stood like that for a good five seconds, prompting giggles from the Chelsea fans behind him.
Sanches' example should serve as a lesson to young players all over the world. He was not ready to move to a club of Bayern's size, and at that age, at that stage of your development, the knock to a player's confidence and a year of not playing much football can be tough to come back from.
While all young players want to play for the biggest teams in Europe, sometimes you've got to look at what is already there and ask yourself if there are going to be any chances to play.
Renato Sanches looked like a world beater in the summer of 2016, and now a little of a year later he doesn't look good enough to play for relegation-threatened Swansea City. He's only 20, so there's time on his side, but he needs to go back to the drawing board it seems.
