Jose Mourinho substituted former Premier League star Renato Sanches just 18 minutes after bringing him on for Roma.
Sanches, who played in the English top flight when on loan at Swansea City for the 2017/18 season, was introduced at half-time of the Serie A side's fixture away at Bologna on Sunday (December 17).
But having replaced Leonardo Spinazzola in midfield, his number then appeared on the fourth official's board again in the 63rd minute. Mourinho opted to take him off in favour of 21-year-old Edoardo Bove.
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Sanches was visibly confused, shrugging to his team-mates as he made his way around the pitch while his manager looked on with a stern expression with the hosts leading 2-0.
He received a post-match apology from Mourinho, who said: "I want to publicly apologise to Renato Sanches, it's very hard for a footballer, but it's also hard for a coach, I've done it three to four times in my career and it's not easy."
The Special One hooked Eric Dier in the 28th minute of Tottenham's 2019 Champions League group stage match against Olympiacos when they were 2-0 down, and hauled off Joe Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips in the 26th minute of a 2006 Premier League clash with Fulham when Chelsea boss.
Was Mourinho wrong to sub Sanches? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
His fellow Portuguese native Sanches has struggled to live up to the expectations of his early career promise and is currently on loan to Roma from PSG.
“With Renato we live in a situation of hope, we always think that space, certain responsibilities, adrenaline are the ideal way to help him make the leap. He has emotional scars, he has many fears due to past injuries," Mourinho continued.
“He works at low intensity, on everything we do. He improves in volume and in workload but never in intensity.
"In the last match against Sheriff he had given us 60 minutes of hope, and today I thought about inserting him because the team could have benefited from his quality.
"But then I realised I had made a mistake, because he wasn’t ready to make this leap in such an intense setting. I’m sorry… The last time I did this to a player before Renato was [Nemanja] Matic, and I’m terribly sorry about this but today I couldn’t leave the team with a player who had become frustrated. I had to make this decision.”
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