Swansea City’s Jordan Ayew celebrates scoring their equaliser against Crystal Palace. Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images via Reuters

Jordan Ayew pegs back Crystal Palace but Swansea City stay bottom

This article is more than 6 years old

Swansea remain anchored to the foot of the Premier League, four points adrift of the last safe position and without a manager, yet there was some comfort to be taken from Leon Britton’s first game in caretaker charge, as Jordan Ayew came off the bench to score a terrific equaliser. It was no more than Swansea deserved on the balance of play but nothing like as much as they had hoped for from a game that needed to be won to give their survival prospects a genuine lift.

Crystal Palace, who extended their unbeaten run in the league to eight matches, took the lead through Luka Milivojevic’s second-half penalty and at that point, given Swansea’s fragile confidence, Roy Hodgson’s side could have been forgiven for thinking they would go on to win the game.

Swansea, after all, had come into this fixture having failed to pick up a point from any match in which they had conceded a goal this season.

That damning statistic was put to bed, however, when Ayew scored 11 minutes after coming off the bench to replace Luciano Narsingh. It was the first substitution that Britton has ever made and it could not have turned out much better for him, as Ayew sat Milivojevic on his backside with a lovely dummy before beating Julián Speroni with a superb shot from 22 yards out that flashed past the Palace keeper and just inside the post. “It worked out OK, didn’t it?” said Britton, smiling, as he reflected on that substitution.

Britton, who has been given the job in a temporary capacity in the wake of the decision to sack Paul Clement on Wednesday night, admitted he enjoyed being on the touchline but insisted that the experience had not altered his view that he has no interest in becoming manager on a permanent basis at this stage of his career.

The 35-year-old said he is none the wiser when it comes to the club’s longer-term managerial plans but everything points to him remaining in charge for the Boxing Day match at Liverpool at the very least. Swansea are believed to be finalising a shortlist with a view to interviewing candidates – a process that Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, their majority shareholders, will oversee – after the match at Anfield and before the trip to Vicarage Road on 30 December.

Palace have already been through the hiring and firing process this season, with Hodgson’s appointment, allied to Wilfried Zaha’s return from injury, helping to turn around the club’s fortunes. They remain only two places above the relegation zone but Hodgson declared himself satisfied with four points from back-to-back away games at Leicester and Swansea, as well as the bigger picture.

“We’re trying to chip away at that first seven games when we had zero points,” the Palace manager said. “It’s an enormous handicap to give yourself. We needed big performances to get on an even keel and that’s what we’ve done in the last two or three months.

“We’ve brought ourselves into a pack of teams who have to look over their shoulders and be worried that the spectre of relegation is not leaving them. I expected it to take a lot longer to get ourselves into contention.”

With Christian Benteke suspended, Hodgson pushed Zaha and Andros Townsend further forward and those two always looked dangerous on the counterattack for Palace. Lukasz Fabianski made an excellent save to turn Townsend’s curling shot behind early in the first half and Zaha gave Federico Fernández the runaround for much of the game.

It was Ruben Loftus-Cheek, however, who won Palace their penalty after he was clumsily brought down by Fernández. Milivojevic – with Benteke not around to try to take the ball off of him – confidently scored from the spot.

Swansea, in fairness, had played well in spells up until then and dominated possession for long periods, yet it was the same old problem that afflicted them whenever they attacked, as promising positions turned to nothing.

Indeed, it was not until midway through the second half that Swansea registered an effort on target, when Speroni saved at the near post from Tammy Abraham.

Swansea, however, kept probing and got their reward when Ayew beat Speroni with a splendid shot. “A wonderful strike,” Hodgson conceded.