Roque Mesa made a rare start for Paul Clement’s Swansea City in their 2-0 win at the Madejski on Tuesday night.
Roque Mesa has had to be patient in the first few months of his Swansea City career. The £11 million enforcer, signed amid great expectations from Las Palmas in the summer (Sky Sports), has only featured once so far in the Premier League the South Wales.
And it’s fair to say a 4-0 home thumping against Manchester United was not the way the Spanish midfielder wanted to begin life on British shores.
However, Mesa’s dominant performance at the Madejski as goals from Alfie Mawson and Jordan Ayew secured a 2-0 EFL Cup victory over Reading finally showed Swansea fans what all the fuss was about.
An excellent reader of the game, the diminutive 28-year-old looked one step ahead at all times against their Championship opposition, knitting the play together and encouraging the one-touch football that once made Swansea the toast of neutrals up and down the land.
And it’s fair to say Swansea supporters want to see more from a player who produced more passes in La Liga last season than any player barring Sevilla’s metronomic talisman Steven N’Zonzi.
There will be tougher tests to come for Mesa in English football but he has the intelligence, not to mention a handy balance of guile and grit, to become a key man for Paul Clement in the months ahead.
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