Everton continued their dominant Premier League form after managing a 0-0 draw with Swansea at the Liberty Stadium.

Compared with the poor form of last season when Everton did not become like a proper team until midway through the campaign, Roberto Martinez has focused on making the team extremely hard to beat. This nature saw them only narrowly suffered a defeat against table leaders Manchester City at Goodison Park in the previous match. They have followed that up with a draw against Swansea, who have been one of the better performing teams in the league this season.

Even though the game finished as a draw, Everton will be disappointed with the outcome since they performed exceptionally well to at least get something more than just a point. The blues were especially dominant in the second half and it brought out some last-ditch defending from the home team in order to keep Everton out. For the upcoming games, though, Everton will be without Belgian international Kevin Mirallas after he was given a straight red card just two minutes after coming on as a substitute. Martinez refused to criticiseMirallas’ lack of professionalism. Instead, he tried to focus on aspects like the player being enthusiastic to retrieve the ball.

“I was very, very pleased with the performance. I thought the first half was a bit different to the second.The first one we were settling in, we defended really well and I think we stopped Swansea from having their normal rhythm and then in the second half we had a real intent. The amount of clear cut chances we created, it is not normal for us not to take any of those. Overall, the performance was terrific. At times, Swansea defended extremely well, put their bodies on the line,” said the Everton boss.