Paul Clement defends Swansea debutant Renato Sanches after Newcastle loss

Swansea boss Paul Clement insisted Renato Sanches will improve despite an underwhelming debut in his side’s 1-0 defeat against Newcastle.

The Portuguese midfielder sealed a deadline day loan move from German giants Bayern Munich and arrived in England with a big reputation.

But despite his glamorous CV, Sanches struggled to impose himself against the Magpies and was guilty of losing possession on 23 occasions.

Clement, however, is willing to show patience with the 20-year-old and has backed the Euro 2016 winner to settle in the Premier League.

“When you play your first game for a club you always want to do so well,” Clement told talkSPORT.

“And very often what can happen is the emotion and the psychology of the whole thing can affect your football.

“He did some really good things and he did some things that were not so good.

“For me, that’s normal in a debut. But he’s a very good player and he’ll get better and better here.”

Swansea suffered their second defeat of the season thanks to Jamaal Lascelles’ winner in the final quarter hour of action at the Liberty Stadium.

Newcastle arrived into the clash without their manager Rafael Benitez due to illness and largely outplayed their opponents in an entertaining fixture.

And Clement admitted his disappointment with how his players performed in a potential early season relegation encounter.

“I’m finding it difficult to understand at the moment the performance I saw from my team because the preparation going into the game was very positive.

“We had good training sessions, [the] game plan was understood, [the] atmosphere around the players was very good.

“And then there was the reality of what we actually saw - they were miles apart.”