Vital victory lifts Swansea out of relegation zone
With an arm draped around one of his players, Swansea manager Paul Clement walked toward the team’s celebrating fans and held up two of his fingers.
Two games to secure English Premier League survival, and the relegation battle could go right to the wire.
Swansea was the big winner on Saturday as the fight to stay in the world’s richest domestic soccer league took more twists.
After witnessing losses for relegation rivals Crystal Palace and then Hull, Swansea beat Everton 1-0 to climb out of the bottom three for the first time in a month. That’s seven points won from the last three games for the Welsh club that looked in such a mess in December when it fired American coach Bob Bradley.
“It’s one of my proudest moments,” said Clement, a former assistant at Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris SaintGermain and Chelsea, who is starting to look the part as a coach in his own right.
Last-placed Sunderland is already down. Next-to-last Middlesbrough is set to drop, too, on Monday if Boro loses to Chelsea. It looks to be down to three teams — Palace, Swansea or Hull — for the other relegation place.
Palace has 38 points, Swansea 35, and Hull 34. Next week, Hull visits Palace and Swansea is away to Sunderland. Saturday’s highlights included.
Swansea 1 Everton 0
The all-important goal by Fernando Llorente ended up being a stroke of luck. Jordan Ayew floated over a cross from the right and Llorente leaped highest at the far post, bundling the ball home with his left shoulder. For one of the best headers of the ball in the league, it was an ugly but decisive finish.
Hull 0 Sunderland 2
Hull coach Marco Silva’s 41-match unbeaten home record as a manager ended at the worst possible time. Billy Jones and Jermain Defoe scored secondhalf goals for Sunderland.
Silva had not lost a home league game since 2014, a period taking in spells in charge of Estoril, Sporting Lisbon, Olympiakos, and now four months at Hull.
Manchester City 5 Crystal Palace 0
Palace still might need one more win after this crushing loss at Man City, which was orchestrated by City playmakers David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne.
Silva opened the scoring inside two minutes and was untouchable until he went off to a standing ovation in the 67th, while De Bruyne also scored and set up goals for centre-backs Vincent Kompany and Nicolas Otamendi. Raheem Sterling scored the other.
City climbed above Liverpool into third place on goal difference, and opened up a four-point gap to fifth-place Manchester United, which plays at Arsenal today. Another season in the Champions League is looking increasingly likely for City with games left against Leicester and West Bromwich Albion at home and away to Watford.