Renato Sanches set for key role at Bayern Munich says boss Niko Kovac
Bayern Munich boss Niko Kovac has big plans for Renato Sanches in the second half of the season, and is "convinced he'll play a lot of games" as the Bavarian giants challenge at home and in Europe.
Sanches signed for Bayern in summer 2016 in the wake of hugely impressive performances for Portugal at UEFA EURO 2016, but has yet to fully establish himself in the first team.
He spent last season on loan at Swansea City where he struggled to recapture his best form, and has made just 11 Bundesliga appearances this term having returned to the Allianz Arena in the summer.
Watch: Bayern Munich primed for second half of the season
But the 21-year-old can expect to be much busier in the Rückrunde with Kovac attempting to spread his squad over Bayern's three-pronged challenge in the league, the DFB Cup and the UEFA Champions League.
"I'm really pleased with Renato and convinced he'll play a lot of games in the rest of this season. If everything goes well we'll have a lot of games in March and April. We could have nine games in 30 days in April, which is a hell of a lot, and we’ll need every player," said the Bayern boss, who warned potential suitors off his young midfielder.
"PSG were and are very interested, but I've said Renato isn’t going anywhere because I think he's showing great progress. He's played a number of games, unfortunately he got a red card in the last home game so he couldn't play against Frankfurt, but he did really well during the winter break. He is doing really well, and I don't want to lose him."
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The former Eintracht Frankfurt and Croatia boss added: "We saw what happened when we lost a few players in the first half of the season. Kingsley Coman, Rafinha – [Corentin] Tolisso has been out for some time anyway – but we're now missing Franck [Ribery] and Arjen [Robben], so we can’t reduce our squad and have to remain competitive, because we’ve got a lot of games to come."
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