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29th Nov 2017

Renato Sanches appears to mistake advertising board logo for Swansea teammate

At least it was an accurate pass...

Simon Lloyd

Renato Sanches is regarded by many as one of the brightest young talents in world football.

While we’re not doubting that the 20-year-old isn’t worthy of such hype, it’s fair to say he’s not done *that* much in the last year or so to justify his big reputation.

Part of Portugal’s Euro 2016-winning squad, the midfielder signed for Bayern Munich that same summer. After failing to make an impact in Bavaria, he was loaned out to Swansea at the start of this season.

Again, things haven’t always gone smoothly for Sanches in the Premier League. Mocked for conceding possession of the ball over 20 times on his debut in September, Sanches was recently criticised for his performance against Bournemouth by Robbie Savage – who described him as “woeful”.

This prompted manager Paul Clement to defend the youngster during his press conference earlier this week, suggesting Savage had been overly harsh on the player.

On Wednesday evening, Sanches started at Stamford Bridge as Swansea took on Chelsea. With 10 minutes remaining in the first half, he played a ball out wide to what (presumably) he thought was a teammate.

It was not a teammate.

As a now-viral tweet appears to show, Sanches mistakes the red Carabao logo on a pitch-side advertising board for one of the Swansea team, who were also wearing their red changed strip.

We’d love to show you the tweet in question, but Premier League broadcast rules state that we can’t. Instead, feat your eyes on these low resolution screen grabs before you see it on the telly later.

Sanches gets ball

Sanches plays pass

Carabao logo gratefully receives pass, killing the ball dead with its first touch

Paul Clement begins to cry