Swansea City's 2017 transfer deadline day will be remembered for the wrong reasons: View | OneFootball

Swansea City's 2017 deadline day signings of Wilfried Bony and Renato Sanches failed to live up to expectations

After narrowly avoiding relegation to the Championship during the 2016/17 Premier League season, Swansea City knew they had to strengthen their squad in the summer of 2017, and they made a number of signings.

The likes of Roque Mesa, Tammy Abraham, and Sam Clucas all joined the club, and it looked as if they'd left the best until last.

On deadline day in August 2017, Swansea announced they had re-signed Manchester City striker Wilfried Bony after an impressive spell at the club between 2013 and 2015, and incredibly, they added Bayern Munich's Portuguese international midfielder Renato Sanches to their ranks.

Sanches wasn't just any Portuguese international, he was seen as one of the brightest talents in world football, and had helped Portugal win the Euros the previous summer, also winning the Young Player of the Tournament award, earning a move to Bayern Munich.

Bony and Sanches joining the club looked like signings that could help the Swans move up the table and enjoy a successful season. However, that was not the case.

Wilfried Bony and Renato Sanches turned out to be poor signings

Excitement reached fever pitch levels in the white half of south Wales after Bony and Sanches signed, but things couldn't have got off to a worse start.

Swansea hosted Newcastle United on the 10th September, the club's first game since the duo signed, and Sanches was handed a start with Bony on the bench.

Newcastle were a newly-promoted side, so a home game against the Magpies seemed the perfect chance to earn three points, but Swansea were defeated 1-0 in a poor display, and Sanches looked miles off the pace.

He was taken off after 69 minutes after giving the ball away 23 times, and things didn't get any better in the following weeks.

Sanches never really recovered from that disastrous display on his debut, and things came to a head in November when he was hauled off at half-time against Chelsea after a poor display which had seen him pass the ball to an advertising hoarding instead of his teammate.

Sanches suffered from injuries during his time in Wales, and in total he played just 15 times for Swansea and was part of the winning side just twice.

He suffered an injury in an FA Cup game against Notts County in January 2018 and that was his final appearance, with Swansea eventually suffering relegation to the Championship. Unsurprisingly, Sanches returned to Bayern Munich that summer, and his time in SA1 will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Bony, on the other hand, fared slightly better, but was still a huge flop, failing to live up to his £12million price tag.

His second stint in SA1 was blighted by injuries, and during the 2017/18 campaign he played just 19 games, scoring three times.

Swansea were relegated to the Championship, but had no option but to keep Bony at the club over the summer transfer window as he was injured, and when he did return he played seven Championship games, scoring just once.

With his contract expiring that summer, he was loaned to Qatari side Al-Arabi in January, before leaving on a free transfer upon the expiration of his deal.

In total, Bony made 26 appearances, and scored just four times - a waste of money for the £12million they had paid for him.

Swansea have never really recovered from wasting money during the 2017/18 season

When most Premier League clubs are relegated to the Championship, they're in a strong place to make an immediate return with parachute payments and squads full of quality, but Swansea City weren't.

The summer of 2018 saw mass upheaval at the club, and in total, 12 players who had featured for Swansea's first-team the previous season left, with another three leaving on loan in January, such was the club's dire financial situation.

It was a million miles away from the likes of Leicester, Leeds and Southampton last season, and Swansea's finances have never been too healthy after being relegated.

Instead, Swansea had to blood a number of youngsters after relegation, and they were lucky they had a good manager at the helm in the form of Graham Potter, and a quality group of youngsters coming through, or it could have been messy for Swansea.

The likes of Connor Roberts, Joe Rodon, Jay Fulton, Matt Grimes, George Byers, Dan James and Oli McBurnie all became first-team regulars for the first time and helped Swansea to a 10th place finish, a successful season given the circumstances.

Six years on from relegation to the Championship, and the days of making big signings are well and truly over.

The club wasted a lot of money on players during the 2017/18 season, with Sanches and Bony perhaps just being the tip of the iceberg. It was expected that they'd take Swansea to the next level, but it got them relegated, and into financial trouble they've never fully recovered from.