Swansea City and Everton settled for a point apiece in Saturday’s early afternoon Premier League kickoff in Wales.
Jonjo Shelvey’s penalty canceled out Aaron Lennon’s first-half opener as Garry Monk’s men equal their record Premier League point tally of 47.
Just a change from the Swansea side that played Hull City last week with Angel Rangel getting Monk’s nod in place of the injured Kyle Naughton, while Everton remained unchanged from the team that faced Southampton for the first time in just over one year.
Going head-to-head against a one-time understudy is always a tricky affair and Roberto Martinez- up against his captain during his time at the Liberty stadium- had it panning out to plan in early exchanges, while Everton pressured high up park and sought to dominate play.
Bafetimbi Gomis’ quarter-of-an-hour cameo was best at its 13th-minute prime, when he forced an excellent save from Tim Howard with his instant shot from 25 yards after a clever turn, but it turned out the French striker’s last involvement as he had to be replaced by Marvin Emnes having appeared to pull his hamstring in that act.
His departure sort of hushed the home crowd bearing he had been in good form of late, yet the visitors were not spared of their own early substitution with Steven Piennar coming on for Leon Osman for his first Premier League appearance since 15 December.
Shelvey had the ball in the back of the net few minutes later via a stunning dipping strike from range, but the goal was disallowed because Wayne Routledge fouled Leighton Baines in the build-up.
Seamus Coleman forced a fine save from Lukas Fabianski two minutes after the half-hour mark, with the Swansea goalkeeper diving full-length to avert his long-range effort.
Lennon broke the deadlock four minutes to the break, having been afforded time to control and slot in James McCarthy’s in-swinging cross from the left from close range.
Arouna Kone almost doubled the lead only to be denied by Fabianski after being teed up by the impressive Piennar, whose contribution- as well as Baines- placed the Toffees on top at half-time.
Swansea needed an immediate response on restart but, despite enjoying a sustained spell of possession, could not get behind Everton defence.
While Routledge and Emnes struggled to trouble Howard, Ki Sung-yueng was guilty of not keeping his close-range effort down after being slipped into the box by Routledge.
The Swans twice had a penalty appeal fall on referee Michael Oilver’s deaf ears with Coleman and Phil Jagielka appearing to weigh in too much on a tackle as crosses come in from the right.
But there was no denying them one moment later as Coleman handled the ball in the box. Shelvey stepped up to send Howard in the wrong direction for his third league goal of the season.
Ross Barkley twice had a pop at goal, first shooting directly at Howard before sailing the second well wide.
Tim Howard tipped Gylfi Sigurdsson’s free-kick over the bar on 84 minutes and Fabianski calmly gathered Kevin Mirallas’ shot at the other end, leaving both sides to settle for a fair draw in a flat contest.
Swansea’s Jack Cork: “I think that’s a good result for us. To equal our record BPL points tally is brilliant and something we’ve been looking to do for ages. We’ll just see how many different targets we can achieve until the end of the season.”
