Three Things Learned from Everton 3-1 Swansea

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After a laboured first-half, Everton came from behind to smash Swansea 3-1 at Goodison Park. But what did we learn?

1. Gylfi Sigurdsson has arrived under Big Sam

It may seem minor to say that Everton’s £50m man scored a goal, but you have to appreciate a few things. Firstly, since Sam Allardyce has taken over, Gylfi Sigurdsson hasn’t been at his best for Everton.

Oh, Sigurdsson has been good, he even scored against Huddersfield, but he’s not had an epic moment. And when you cost £50m, even in this market, you need to deliver on those epic moments (especially when you are, by a distance, your team’s most talented player) much more regularly – as Sigurdsson did when he played for Swansea last year.

Which is exactly what Sigurdsson did against Swansea. Just when Everton needed him most he stepped up and thundered a gorgeous strike into the top corner. It was miraculous; as Allardyce himself said: “you need a special player sometimes to pull something special out of the bag and that was Gylfi.”

2. The Premier League has devoured Roque Mesa

Sometimes things just don’t work, no matter how much you want them too. Roque Mesa joining Swansea made all the sense in the world given the history of the Welsh side as an expansive ball-playing outfit with a brave risk-taking coach like Paul Clement.

Clement took his time integrated Roque Mesa into the side, but that doesn’t appear to have worked. The Spaniard looked disjointed and on a different wavelength to team-mates, as opposed to the steady playmaker at the heart of a passing machine.

Moreover, without the ball the lack of cohesion in the Swansea side has a hugely negative effect on him. Witness Roque Mesa’s shocking tackle on Aaron Lennon that gave Everton the penalty they eventually equalised from. It wasn’t a violent challenge, but staggeringly needless and desperate.

Given Swansea’s plight, one wouldn’t be surprised if Roque Mesa left and returned to Spain sometime in either January or May. The Premier League has claimed another victim.

3. Everton have an epic belief

Before the game against Swansea, Sam Allardyce’s Everton had only been behind once: against Liverpool in the Merseyside Derby. They recovered in that game mostly thanks to the ineptitude of Dejan Lovren; it was a nice surprise as many expected a rampant Liverpool to roll then over.

Against Swansea, however, they were favoured. They were expected to win. That’s a difficult challenge for a team like Everton, so used to fighting against the odds this season, to cope with. And when they fell behind it would be easy to see them losing.

But Everton forced their way back into the game. They not only equalised, but took and then extended the lead. They turned a struggling performance into an emphatic victory.

In short, Sam Allardyce’s Everton showed the kind of unshakeable confidence in themselves that allows them to turn games around. The kind of epic belief that’ll see them not only avoid relegation but probably finish in the top half of the table.