Swansea 0-2 Everton

Goals from Leighton Baines and Nikica Jelavic at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday saw Everton cruise past a Swansea side who never got out of second gear

Goal-scorers

Baines opened the scoring on 59 minutes after a run ended with him being fouled 25-yards out. He picked himself up and curled the resulting free kick into the top right-hand corner of Michel Vorm’s goal, leaving the Swansea keeper with no chance.

The visitors doubled their lead with quarter of an hour left to play when second half substitute Marouane Fellaini twisted and turned to create space in the box, before pulling the ball back to Jelavic to sidefoot home from four yards.

Everton’s second half dominance was built on a platform of hard work established in the first period during which they closed Swansea down at every opportunity and the away side’s defensive performance was such that the home side barely had a chance of note over the course of 90 minutes.

Stracqualursi had an excellent chance to put Everton three up with eight minutes left to play, but when Steven Pienaar finally gave the ball to him just six yards out, his effort was far too close to Vorm and the keeper got down to save.

For Swansea this will be a game to forget, but Everton look to be in fine form heading into the closing stages of the season and, perhaps most importantly for them, their FA Cup quarter final replay against Sunderland on Tuesday.