SIGGY’S STARDUST FOR SAM
Midfielder hits cracker against former club to lead Everton fightback
When the season was new and held out such promise, Paul Clement was sanguine about the loss of Gylfi Sigurdsson to everton and confident there would be a new way ahead without him.
This was the occasion he discovered the challenge of making good on a declaration like that.
Clement cut a desolate figure as he admitted that he is in the same predicament he faced when he took over as Swansea manager nearly 12 months ago, when the team had the same 12-point tally they hold today.
‘Yes, it’s a difficult job being a manager,’ he said. ‘It’s something I’m unused to in my career. I was used to losing one in 10 but winning nine. now it’s the opposite.’
The sales of Sigurdsson and Fernando Llorente to Tottenham so late this summer, affording him no time to make plans for a season without them, looks more like folly with each passing week.
Clement foresaw the purchase of Wilfried Bony from Manchester City as a move which would deliver the goals, though the player looked like an individual who wanted to be elsewhere when he departed after four minutes with a hamstring pull. ‘Very strange,’ Clement said. ‘I don’t know what action he would do to sustain that injury. Very strange.’
his Swansea side were actually looking confident of extracting a point and some encouragement from a night of attrition when Icelander Sigurdsson delivered them deeper into trouble, four points from safety at the foot of the table and matches against Liverpool and Tottenham ahead. his five touches navigated the ball into comfortable striking distance before he unleashed a shot way beyond the reach of his old teammate Lukasz Fabianksi. It will mean nothing to Swansea that the man they sold for £40million chose not to celebrate.
They had worked on a threat like that but when it came they were powerless.
everton are not the finished article either, even though they are now six points off seventh-placed Tottenham. ‘There was a little bit of negativity,’ Allardyce said. ‘We passed balls back to our goalkeeper instead of being brave enough to get our head up.’
his players began brightly, with Wayne Rooney dropping deep for possession and providing the architecture, while Aaron Lennon looked the biggest attacking threat.
Idrissa Gana Gueye, another key part of an Allardyce machine built on solidity, drove forward and distributed well and there were half chances in the first half- hour. Rooney lifted Cuco Martina’s clipped ball from the left over the bar with his right outstep. Lennon nutmegged Alfie Mawson and drove a shot a foot wide of Lukasz Fabianksi’s left post.
But the overwhelming impression left by the first period was Swansea’s steadfastness, organisation and refusal to yield to the kind of panic which a predicament like theirs can create. They were solid in defence and had begun moving the ball around threateningly before they went ahead on 35 minutes. Tom Carroll’s high inswinging corner was allowed to bounce in the six-yard box where Leroy Fer despatched it past Jordan Pickford.
The numbers told the story. Fer’s goal took Swansea’s tally to just 10 in 18 games this season. But so did the reactions. Clement’s players ran towards the bench in celebration. They look like a collective.
They could not hold on to their advantage, though. On the stroke of half-time, everton were level. Poor defending allowed Rooney to play a clever pass to Lennon, who ventured into the box where a push from Roque Mesa sent him down for a penalty. Rooney’s spotkick was pushed on to the post by Fabianski but Dominic CalvertLewin drove home an equaliser.
The struggle to gain an advantage against the league’s bottom side is not what everton had anticipated when Sigurdsson arrived amid such fervour this summer but the rescue act is under way, with the next challenge to bring some electricity to so- called School of Science.
SIGuRDSSOn drove around the outside of the Swansea box and struck a tame shot at Fabianksi before Allardyce brought Tom Davies into the fray on the hour mark in his search for more creativity.
But then came the Sigurdsson strike. And within nine minutes of it, Clement’s misery was complete, when Jonjoe Kenny went down outside the area under a challenge from Martin Olsson and yet was awarded a penalty. Clement was too desperate to complain about the decision.
It was the second everton penalty of the night which Rooney, having missed the first, made no mistake about, driving it high to the goalkeeper’s right for his 10th league goal of the season — the same as the visiting side.
Swansea continued to drive at everton. Kenny was booked for a poor challenge as substitute Jordan Ayew raced through the everton midfield. But Clement needs a goal-scoring threat before his side sink without trace and the pain of watching Sigurdsson score becomes a mere incidental detail. EVERTON (4-2-3-1): Pickford 6.5; Kenny 5.5, Holgate 6, Williams 5.5, Martina 6; Schneiderlin 5 (Davies 61min, 6), Gueye 7; Lennon 7.5 (Lookman 79), ROONEY 8 (Sandro 89), Sigurdsson 7.5; Calvert-Lewin 6.5.
Subs not used: Robles, Keane, Jagielka, Vlasic. Scorers: Calvert-Lewin 45, Sigurdsson 64, Rooney 73 (pen). Booked: Holgate, Kenny. Manager: Sam Allardyce 6.5. SWANSEA (4-1-4-1): Fabianski 6.5; Naughton 6, Fernandez 5.5, Mawson 6, Olsson 6; Mesa 6; Narsingh 5.5, Fer 6.5, Carroll 6 (Clucas 80), Dyer 7 (Ayew 74, 6); Bony 2 (Abraham 5, 5.5). Subs not used: Nordfeldt, Van der Hoorn, Rangel, Sanches. Scorer: Fer 35. Booked: Dyer, Fernandez, Fer. Manager: Paul Clement 6. Referee: Jonathan Moss 6. Attendance: 37,580.