Swansea 2 - 1 SouthamptonGylfi Sigurdsson sinks Southampton and keeps Swansea looking up
Home team scorersAlfie Mawson 38
Gylfi Sigurdsson 70
Away team scorersShane Long 57
Tuesday 31 January 2017 21.51 GMT Last modified on Tuesday 31 January 2017 21.53 GMT
It is amazing what a shot of confidence can do for a team. Seemingly resigned to relegation at the end of December, Swansea City signed off January with a third victory in four Premier League matches to continue their upward momentum under Paul Clement and give their survival chances another huge boost.
Gylfi Sigurdsson proved once again why he is so invaluable to Swansea as he created the first goal, which Alfie Mawson headed in at the near post, and scored the second. Sigurdsson now has seven goals and seven assists to his name in the league this season and remains the most influential player in this Swansea team by a distance.
Southampton, in truth, had looked the more likely side to go on and win the game when Shane Long registered his second Premier League goal of the season early in the second half. Claude Puel’s team certainly had their chances before and after Sigurdsson scored, with the Southampton manager unable to conceal his anger at times as opportunities went begging. The last of them was a header from Maya Yoshida that slid agonisingly past the far post late on.
Southampton started brightly and there were times in the opening 15 minutes when they looked much more like the home team as they monopolised possession and exploited Long’s pace in behind the Swansea defence.
Swansea, in contrast, seemed a little flat and there was an anxious moment for the home team when Dusan Tadic set Long free in the inside right channel after Mawson’s wayward pass was easily cut out. With the angle against him, Long seemed caught in two minds and wastefully thrashed his shot high and wide.
Slowly but surely, though, Swansea started to move the ball with more confidence on a night when the conditions were not making it easy for either side. A torrential downpour in the hours leading up to kick-off left the playing surface saturated and it was inevitable that there would be a few mistakes.
Sigurdsson, as ever, was at the heart of Swansea’s best moments, in particular from set pieces, where Southampton never looked comfortable. With José Fonte sold to West Ham United and Virgil van Dijk injured, Southampton are adjusting to life without two key central defenders and it was a weakness that Swansea sought to expose.
There was an early warning for Southampton when Fernando Llorente flicked on Sigurdsson’s corner and the ball struck Jack Stephens on the hand. Roger East, who was returning to Premier League refereeing after a two-month absence following a couple of blunders in a game at Stoke, gave nothing and Southampton breathed a sigh of relief.
More chances arrived for Swansea as they took control. Leroy Fer, set up by Sigurdsson, chested the ball down just outside the area and hammered a low, swerving shot that Forster, diving low to his left, did well to turn around the post. Southampton brought every player back to defend the corner that followed – a measure of their concern when dealing with dead-ball situations – yet it was still not enough to prevent Swansea from taking the lead.
Once again Sigurdsson was the architect, the Icelander delivering an inswinging corner that Mawson, darting across the six-yard box, met with a glancing header. The ball then took a significant deflection off the head of Oriol Romeu, Mawson’s marker, and ended up in the back of the net via the inside of the near upright. Sigurdsson came close to adding a second on the stroke of half-time with a lovely piece of skill as he turned away from Romeu and then nutmegged Cédric before thumping a low 20-yard shot that Forster managed to turn over the bar.
The question was how a Southampton side that was unrecognisable from the one that lined up against Arsenal in the FA Cup on Saturday – Puel made eight changes – would react. A slick goal just before the hour mark provided the answer. Steven Davis, who is such an intelligent player, fed Ryan Bertrand with a measured pass into the space that opened up on the Southampton left, and the England international’s excellent low centre was turned in by Long, who did not have to break his stride.
Southampton almost had a second four minutes later. Instead Nathan Redmond’s shot, from no more than 10 yards out, ended up going out for a throw-in on the far side of the pitch. He nearly atoned shortly afterwards with an effort from much further out that Fabianski tipped over.
The visitors were on top, yet it was Swansea who broke away to score from a Southampton corner. Tom Carroll fed the debutant Luciano Narsingh, who sprinted clear before delivering a pass that Sigurdsson, falling backwards as he made contact, volleyed into the far corner.
Guardian