Swansea City dismantled a much-changed Liverpool side to make sure of their Premier League survival.
Andre Ayew's header and a sumptuous Jack Cork goal put the hosts in charge after a vibrant first-half display. Christian Benteke nodded in to give the visitors hope, but Ayew's second goal swiftly ended those aspirations. Brad Smith was then sent off for Liverpool, whose hopes of Champions League qualification now rest on winning the Europa League.
It is a victory which moves Swansea, who have two games remaining, to 13th in the table and opens an unassailable 11-point gap between them and third-from-bottom Sunderland.With Liverpool playing their first league game since an inquest concluded the 96 fans who died in the Hillsborough disaster were unlawfully killed, the pre-match tributes at the Liberty Stadium made for a moving atmosphere.On the pitch, Swansea were as impressive against Liverpool as they were abject in their 4-0 capitulation at Leicester in their previous outing.With this match bookended by the two legs of their Europa League semi-final against Villarreal, Liverpool made eight changes as they named their youngest side of the Premier League era with an average age of 23.
This was not the first time Jurgen Klopp had selected an experimental team with European commitments in mind, as a similarly inexperienced line-up won comfortably at Bournemouth in April.However, against Swansea, Klopp's side unravelled as their youngsters were overwhelmed.
Midfielder Pedro Chirivella endured a torrid first league start, and the 18-year-old was replaced by the seasoned Lucas Leiva at half-time.
Chirivella's midfield colleague Kevin Stewart did not fare much better, while young left-back Smith was sent off after receiving two yellow cards.Swansea were already all but guaranteed a sixth successive season in the Premier League, but knew a point against Liverpool would officially secure survival.
Soundly beaten by Leicester and Newcastle in their last two games, there was an onus on Francesco Guidolin's side to produce an improved performance - and they did so in style.Cork embodied their dynamism with a thrusting display in midfield, crowned by his arcing shot from the edge of the penalty area which gave his side their second goal.
The Swans were given a fright when substitute Benteke headed in from a corner to halve Liverpool's deficit.
But the home side were never genuinely troubled and, two minutes later, Ayew fired into the bottom corner as Swansea scored three goals for the first time in the Premier League this season.
Swansea boss Francesco Guidolin: "It is an important result for me, for the players, for the club, because this was a complicated season. I'm happy for my players because today they've shown they're not on the beach but very focused on the job. I know my players and I'm proud of them.
"At Leicester, we played well in the first 30 minutes and they were a bit worried, but today we played well and we scored two times. At Leicester we conceded two goals and this is the difference.
"Today we are happy because we won and the table is very good. I played in my career many games in the Europa League and it's difficult to play Thursday and Sunday. This is not right and this is the reason Liverpool, I think, lost the match because it's impossible to be fresh and ready for another important match but we deserved to win."Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp: "We changed the line-up and with this line-up we can play much better football. We could explain a few things and it would sound like an excuse.
"This performance was not enough. We cannot be sure but if we don't concede the third one it's an open game. You can see there was not the body language you need for a comeback, though.
"We deserved to lose, they deserved to win, that's how football is on a bad day. I thought we lost a lot of easy balls, we weren't compact, there were a lot of things we could've done better. If we'd played a normal game, we could have won."
The stats you need to know
- Swansea enjoyed their fourth home league win in a row, their best-ever run of home Premier League victories.
- Christian Benteke netted his 50th goal in the Premier League.
- Andre Ayew scored twice in a game for the first time for Swansea in any competition.
- Swansea struck three goals in a Premier League game for the first time since 25 April, 2015 - the last time Jack Cork scored.
- Gylfi Sigurdsson has been involved in 41 Premier League goals for Swansea overall (25 goals, 16 assists), 10 more than any other Swansea player (Wilfried Bony is next on 31).
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