Swansea City vs Crystal Palace. Premier League.
Swansea.com StadiumAttendance20,492.
Saturday 6 February 2016 22:22, UK
Scott Dann scored his fifth goal of the season to nick a 1-1 draw for Crystal Palace at Swansea.
The defender fired home just after the break to level the game following Gylfi Sigurdsson's first-half free-kick.
Dann also netted in Palace's defeat against Bournemouth on Tuesday night, but this time his goal brought Alan Pardew's side their first point of 2016.
Swansea, meanwhile, continued their unbeaten start to life under Francesco Guidolin, who has drawn his last two games since victory at Everton a fortnight ago.
The home side started brighter and they took a deserved lead in the 13th minute through Sigurdsson's brilliant free-kick.
The Icelandic midfielder won the set-piece himself after being fouled by Emmanuel Adebayor on the edge of the area, before curling one into Wayne Hennessey's bottom left-hand corner.
Guidolin's side continued to dominate and Alberto Paloschi, making his full debut for Swansea, impressed as a lone striker, providing a useful outlet for his side as well as linking up well with Sigurdsson and Wayne Routledge in attack.
Palace were struggling to make an impact, with Adebayor looking isolated up front on his first start for the club, but they grew into it towards the end of the half and had chances to equalise just before the break.
Adebayor had an effort deflected just over, while Yohan Cabaye's long-range strike and Dann's header from a free-kick also went close.
Pardew made a change at half-time as Marouane Chamakh replaced the ineffective Lee Chung-yong and joined Adebayor up front, and the attacking change paid immediate dividends as they equalised in the 47th minute.
Damien Delaney headed Cabaye's corner into the path of Dann, who made no mistake in firing home from close range.
Both sides pushed hard for the rest of the game to find the winner, with Sigurdsson's set-pieces in particular causing real problems for the Palace defence as both Swansea's centre-backs - Federico Fernandez and Ashley Williams - went close.
But in the end neither side could find a second goal as the spoils were eventually shared at the Liberty Stadium - as Swansea stay 16th and Palace remain in 12th.
Charlie Nicholas' Soccer Saturday verdict
Swansea look just a little bit more confident when they have the ball. They've always been fairly comfortable on that side of things. Guidolin is into his technical ideas isn't he and they pass it and move it, the wet conditions probably helped that. It was a good start, they wanted to make things happen. The Sigurdsson free-kick is a very clever one.
I was impressed with how Palace got back into the game. Adebayor was lively, he led the line well. But [Wilfried] Zaha was too deep in the first half, [Yohan] Cabaye was too deep and then the start of the second half [Marouane] Chamakh came on and it sprung them into life then straight away Scott Dann scores, a lovely finish. A little touch on near post, steers it really well and it's nothing more than they deserved.
Player ratings
Swansea: Fabianski (6), Rangel (6), Fernandez (6), Williams (6), Taylor (5), Britton (6), Cork (6), Routledge (6), Sigurdsson (7), Ayew (6), Paloschi (6)
Subs: Naughton (n/a), Barrow (6), Gomis (n/a)
Crystal Palace: Hennessey (6), Ward (6), Dann (7), Delaney (6), Souare (6), Jedinak (6), Cabaye (6), Zaha (7), Mutch (6), Lee (4), Adebayor (6)
Subs: Boateng (6), Chamakh (5), Campbell (n/a)
Man of the match: Gylfi Sigurdsson
