Swansea City’s American owners chose a good afternoon to drop by the Liberty Stadium as Fernando Llorente scored twice for the second home game in succession to lift them off the bottom of the Premier League and out of the relegation zone on a perfect day for Bob Bradley and his players.
It was just the sort of result Bradley needed after a difficult week in which the manager has faced questions about his future after two months in the job. With Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, the club’s majority shareholders, looking on from the directors’ box together for only the second time this season, an emphatic home victory provided the best possible response and buried the memory of the drubbing at Tottenham.
Gylfi Sigurdsson was outstanding again as he scored the first and created the second, meaning the Icelander has been directly involved in eight goals in his last eight Premier League appearances. Yet there were impressive performances all over the pitch, with Leon Britton and Jay Fulton catching the eye in central midfield and Llorente showing what a difference a little bit of confidence can make to a striker.
David Moyes described the controversial penalty Sigurdsson converted early in the second half to give Swansea the lead as the turning point and it was easy to sympathise with the Sunderland manager’s frustration about what looked like a soft decision, with Jason Denayer adjudged to have handled Wayne Routledge’s cross. Yet Moyes knew he could have no complaints about the result.
Swansea were superior in every department in the second half. It was not until the 80th minute that Lukasz Fabianski had a serious save to make, when the Swansea goalkeeper tipped Papy Djilobodji’s header on to the bar, and by then the game was well beyond Sunderland, who are now bottom again after three wins in four had improved their standing.
For Swansea, the table makes for much better reading. “It’s a nice bonus,” Bradley said, reflecting on a win that helped them climb three places. “We can’t get ahead of ourselves. The word that many players used when we talked this week was ‘pride’. The only thing I did was try to get back at them and say: ‘What does pride look like actually on the pitch?’ Pride has to turn into intensity. Pride has to turn into clean sheets. Don’t just talk about it, put it into something more. So for me, those kind of things are first and then at the end of all that, for a few seconds, you can look at the table and say: ‘We’re not there yet, but that looks better than it did last week and let’s see if we can continue to move things forward.’”
Bradley acknowledged the first goal was always going to be crucial, with Swansea confidence brittle after their 5-0 defeat at White Hart Lane, and on another day Jermain Defoe may well have opened the scoring. The former England striker broke away on a couple of occasions but he blazed the first chance over and the second wide.
The significance of that second opportunity became clear 60 seconds later when Craig Pawson, the referee, pointed to the spot after Denayer tried to block Routledge’s cross. “I think it’s too close to give a penalty-kick,” Moyes said. “I think the boy goes with his foot, turns his back and it hits him on his arm. So I think that was harsh and it turns the game.”
Sigurdsson dispatched his penalty and it was as if a switch had been flicked, as confidence surged through Swansea. Two minutes later Sigurdsson released Modou Barrow and the Gambian drilled in a low shot that Jordan Pickford, who was Sunderland’s best player by a distance, turned around the post.
There was nothing Pickford could do to stop the goal Swansea scored from the corner that followed. In a well-worked routine, Sigurdsson slid a low corner into the area and Llorente timed his run perfectly to sweep home a first-time shot.
Swansea were in total control and only an outstanding piece of goalkeeping from Pickford denied the home team a third. Once again Sigurdsson was the architect, his curling free-kick from the right picking out Jordi Amat, whose twisting header was expertly tipped over by Pickford.
Sunderland were unable to stem the tide and it was no surprise when Swansea scored again. Jefferson Montero broke down the left, skirted around the full-back Billy Jones and floated over a cross that implored Llorente to head in his second and put a smile on the face of Bradley in the process.
“Today is a step but we have to build on it,” the Swansea manager said.
