People are comparing Renato Sanches’ debut to the same Premier League cult-hero

Paul Moore

A debut to forget for the Portuguese star.

In terms of debuts to forget, Renato Sanches’ first Premier League outing in a Swansea jersey wasn’t as bad as some other debuts that we’ve seen down the years.

Leeds United fans might remember Rio Ferdinand playing his first game for the club after securing his £18million move from West Ham. Leeds were away to Leicester City and they found themselves 3-0 down inside the opening 30 minutes. The defender had an absolute nightmare.

This pales in comparison to Johnathan Woodgate’s debut for Real Madrid though which saw him scoring an own-goal and getting sent-off against Athletic Bilbao.

Even the greats can have an awful performance on their debuts. When Henrik Larsson made his first league appearance for Celtic as a late substitute against Hibernian, he gave the the ball to Hibs’ Chic Charnely who scored the winner.

In Dennis Bergkamp’s first seven matches for Arsenal, he failed to find the net.

All things considered, nearly every player requires a settling in period to acclimatise to their new club, and it’s impossible to make an instant decision based over the course of one match.

This being said, plenty of football fans have compared Sanches’ debut with a bona fide cult-hero of the Premier League, Southampton’s very own chancer, Ali Dia.

In what’s fondly remembered as one of the greatest stories in the history of the Premier League, Dia claimed to be George Weah’s cousin and was actually given a Premier League appearance by Graeme Souness when Southampton faced Leeds.

After ten minutes on the pitch it was clear that Dia was absolutely crap and that he probably wouldn’t even get a game for your five-a-side team.

While we’re not saying that Sanches – a winner of the Young Player of the Tournament accolade at Euro 2016 and the 2016 Golden Boy Award – will go down in Premier League infamy like Dia did, he does have to show a massive improvement in Swansea’s next league match against Spurs.

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