Swans hold Everton to tie best points tally
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SWANSEA City equaled its highest ever points tally in a Premier League season following a 1-1 draw with Everton in the early game at the Liberty Stadium in Wales yesterday.
Swansea, which lost striker Bafetimbi Gomis to injury, stayed eighth in the table on 47 points, matching its biggest haul with six matches still to play. Everton is 12th on 38.
On-loan midfielder Aaron Lennon fired Everton into a deserved 41st-minute lead and looked lively throughout for the in-form visitors.
Jonjo Shelvey, who had a spectacular effort ruled out following a foul in the build-up in the first half, equalized with a 69th-minute penalty after Seamus Coleman handled the ball.
But Garry Monk’s side is running out of time to close the gap on the Europa League places, while Everton’s hopes of a top-half finish are beginning to fade.
Gomis had scored three goals in his previous two games and he was the first player to threaten, drawing a full-stretch save from Tim Howard with a shot on the turn from 25 yards.
But the France international appeared to injure his hamstring in the act of shooting and had to be replaced by Marvin Emnes.
“You want to show progression as a club, as a team, as players and as a manager. That’s what we focused on this season which is a really great achievement,” Swansea boss Monk told the BBC.
“We’ve shown great character and belief in the way that we’ve gone about our job this season. We want to beat it though and we’ve got six opportunities to beat it. Considering everything this season I think we’ve done excellent.”
Everton has struggled this season — after finishing fifth with a club-record 72 Premier League points last campaign — but arrived in south Wales on the back of three successive victories.
Manager Roberto Martinez returned to Swansea — the club he captained during a three-year spell as player before returning as manager from 2007 to 2009 — and spoke highly of his former club.
“I had an incredible relationship with (Swansea),” said the Spaniard, a former teammate of Monk’s.
“I had the honor to captain the club and to be a manager and start a way of playing I am very proud of. It is good to see Swansea doing so well and enjoying such a successful period.”
In-form Arsenal could cut Chelsea’s lead at the top of the table to four points when it traveled to Burnley later yesterday. Tottenham Hotspur was hosting Aston Villa and Southampton was playing struggling Hull City.
In Germany, Robert Lewandowski scored twice as Bayern Munich moved a step closer to the Bundesliga title while his former club Borussia Dortmund slumped to a 1-3 defeat at Borussia Moenchengladbach yesterday.
Lewandowski scored in either half — the first a wonderful volley — and Thomas Mueller added another from a difficult angle in the 82nd minute to give injury-hit Bayern a 3-0 win at home over similarly depleted Eintracht Frankfurt.
Poor defending cost Dortmund dearly in Moenchengladbach, where Oscar Wendt scored in the first minute before Raffael and Havard Nordtveit made it 3-0. Ilkay Gundogan scored Dortmund’s consolation in the 77th.
Bayer Leverkusen stayed two points behind third-placed ‘Gladbach with a 3-2 win at Mainz, Paderborn defeated Augsburg 2-1, and Schalke was held to a 0-0 draw by SC Freiburg.
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