Manchester United seem to have suffered a major setback in their pursuit of Bayern Munich midfielder Renato Sanches.
Jose Mourinho is looking for a young midfielder, as he wants to replace the ageing midfielder Michael Carrick with a long term replacement. Bayern’s Renato Sanches has been identified as a proper replacement for the veteran English midfielder. However, according to Spanish media outlet Diario Gol, the Portuguese whizkid prefers a move to Barcelona, as he is not a great fan of defensive football per his recent interview.
In this article, we will discuss why the Red Devils should stop pursuing the highly rated Bayern midfielder.
Author’s note: I am not a Manchester United fan, whose just riled about Renato’s recent comments about defensive football implemented by Jose Mourinho. As an avid Bundesliga fan, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s not as good as people think thus I’m writing this article.
Renato Sanches came into prominence playing for Benfica as a midfielder in the 2015/16 season. He especially caught the eye playing against Bayern Munich in the knockout stages, where he controlled the midfield of the Portuguese giants all by himself. His value as a young midfield prodigy grew even more, when he showed his brilliance in the European Champions last year, where he guided his team Portugal to European glory.
Thankfully for Bayern, they were quick to sign the 19-year old for a fee of 35 million euros.
However, a season later, he completely failed to live up to the billing for FC Bayern. Sanches only made nine starts in all competition and overall made just 17 appearances in the Bundesliga.
While that may seem pretty decent in a team boasting the likes of Xabi Alonso, Thiago Alcantara, Arturo Vidal, Javi Martinez and many others, Sanches has been poor in literally all the games he has played for Bayern this season. He’s been dead average in the midfield and struggled against quick paced counter attacking opposition more than once.
He doesn’t have a great deal of pace about him and is bound to struggle against fast and pacy nature of the Premier League. He also failed to provide creativity for Bayern this term, with just four chances created in 17 games. Renato was also nominated for six worst Squawka Awards in a match.
Renato also gets caught dawdling on the ball and has a tendency of delivering a poor first touch at times. Although his passing accuracy is very good at 88%, he has just completed just 367 passes, meaning 21 passes per game. Whilst not being able to contribute much offensively, he also has a poor record of just 1 defensive action per game.
Sanches received a whoscored rating of 6.43, only Sven Ulreich and Holger Badstuber have managed less. However, Ulreich has played only five games for Bayern this season and Badstuber made only one appearance for Bayern, before being loaned out to Schalke. So it’s safe to say he’s been their worst player this season and certainly wasn’t worth the value.
Bayern have already signalled their intent of selling the Portuguese midfielder, signing replacements such as Sebastian Rudy and Corentin Tolisso in the process.
So there’s a fair amount of chance that Renato Sanches will fail to deliver in England as well considering the style of play in the Premier League and Manchester United should be aware of that.
