Sunderland 0-2 Swansea City: Swans on Cusp of Survival After Vital Win Over Black Cats

Swansea’s battle for Premier League survival has received a monumental boost after the south Wales side earned a 2-0 life-or-death victory over Sunderland.

Fernando Llorente’s 14th goal of the campaign and Kyle Naughton’s rasping drive sent the Swans four points clear of rival strugglers Hull City ahead of the Tigers’ six-pointer with Crystal Palace on Sunday, and has all-but ensured top flight football for another season.

Sunderland, in contrast, were a team bereft of confidence and ideas, and will do well to make an immediate return to England’s top division after a truly abject season on home turf yielded just 14 points from a possible 57.

With Hull not playing for another 24 hours, the Swans were well aware of the task facing them at the Stadium of Light, but it took just nine minutes – and in their first real opportunity of the game – to strike.

Gylfi Sigurdsson’s absolute peach of a free kick was just begging to be put away and, after squeezing in-between John O’Shea and Jason Denayer, Llorente guided home yet another header with Jordan Pickford left punching at thin air.

Pickford was in the right place to gather Sigurdsson’s direct free kick soon after, before the Sunderland goalkeeper had to be alert to beat Martin Olsson to a deft Ki Sung-yueng lofted ball.

The Black Cats had just an off-target Didier Ndong chance to show for their efforts, and perhaps should have levelled on the half-hour mark. Billy Jones, though, flashed his header wide from Sebastien Larsson’s cross.

Jermain Defoe produced a close-range stop from Lukasz Fabianski at the far post from a Larsson corner, and that save proved vital as Swansea doubled their advantage on the stroke of half-time.

Ki’s superbly weighted pass into the area was seized upon by Naughton, and the right-back crashed home a right-footed shot past Pickford to score his first goal in six years and give Clement’s charges breathing room in the North East.

Larsson was left apoplectic 12 minutes into the second half after his free kick was seemingly handled by Sigurdsson inside the penalty box, but the Swede’s protests were waved away by referee Andre Marriner.

Wabhi Khazri sent a right foot volley just wide of the upright from Larsson’s floated corner midway through the second 45 as Sunderland tried to ramp up the pressure, but Swansea were more than matching the host stride for stride.

Jones inexplicably fired wide after Fabianski had made a mess of a Khazri set-piece chance, but a wall of white shirts were preventing David Moyes’ charges from creating any clear-cut opportunities to truly test Swansea’s shot stopper.