Sky Sports pundits rave over all-action Stoke’s Joe Allen

The defeat at Stoke was Bradley’s second in three matches since his appointment on 3 October, following a 3-2 loss at Arsenal and a goalless draw at home against Watford.

Given the space each team had enjoyed the half-time messages from Hughes and Bradley may have been similar: tighten up and keep hunting and chances should come.

Swansea looked like unravelling as Charlie Adam’s attempt was blocked by Mawson and Ryan Shawcross nodded at Lukasz Fabianski from a corner cheaply given away by Mike van der Hoorn. When it’s the right time to introduce him again then we’ll do that.

The kings of “The Great Escape” in recent years, Sunderland’s late season form under Gus Poyet, after taking over from Paolo Di Canio, was astonishing. Despite an early injury setback, the Potters came out on top thanks to the wonderful combination of Joe Allen and Wilfred Bony.

Just five minutes later, however, Swansea tied it up.

Swansea seemed in real danger of taking a hiding, but out of the blue struck back when Llorente’s superb hold-up play allowed Sigurdsson to cross for Routledge to head home. “He won’t always be involved, but when he is involved, I sense he is going to be a big player for us”, the coach concluded.

The hosts almost restored their lead after 34 minutes when Charlie Adam rattled the upright, before Marko Arnautovic hit the post four minutes later.

Wayne Routledge grabbed the only goal for the visitors in the eighth minute. Alfie Mawson bundled a low cross from Ramadan Sobhi into his own net.

And Allen believes that his attacking midfield partners are as good as anyone else in the country on their day. A full five points now separate them from safety. When it comes to earned points against the stronger contingent of teams, Stoke only have a draw against Manchester United, the team that now sits 8th, to hang their hats on.

“With Wales you’ve got the likes of Gaz and Aaron and there is so much you can learn from them, but also the players I was fortunate enough to play with at Liverpool”. But, they’re on a good run now, and will be confident of a positive result on Monday night. “It was 1-1 at halftime but we didn’t start the second half in a way that suggested we could win the game”. If he was playing with confidence and had scored more goals, maybe that one would have been taken.