Leon Britton believes Swansea are being paid a big compliment by sides that look to disrupt their style of play, but that they need to figure out how to counteract such measures.
Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Everton, courtesy of goals from Leighton Baines and Nikica Jelavic, followed a similar pattern to Norwich's 3-2 win at the Liberty Stadium last month, where a tight, disciplined pressing performance from the visitors denied the Swans the opportunity to build their play from the back.
"It shows how far we have come," the 29-year-old said. "I think at the beginning of the season teams coming down here, I wouldn't say they weren't bothered about how we played, but they concentrated on what they wanted to do. Now teams coming down know we pass the ball well and are looking for ways to stop that."
He added: "It's a compliment in a way that they are changing their gameplan to stop us playing. You have to give Everton credit as well. They have some quality players and are an experienced Premier League team."
Manager Brendan Rodgers has set his sights on establishing the club as a top-flight club in the long term and Britton knows it is vital that Swansea learn the lessons of defeats like the one against Everton.
"I suppose people will always look for ways to stop you playing," he said. "They will have different ideas.
"With Everton it was pushing players up to us and in the first half Tim Cahill was next to me all the half so it was difficult to find space.
"But these things are going to happen and you have to work out ways to deal with it and make sure you still influence the game.
"They were a bit similar to Norwich in the way they went about things. Against Norwich we were poor on the day. This time I don't think we were at our best by any stretch, but that was partly down to the way they played doing well.
"But these are the games we have to learn from, other teams will look at sides who got results here and see what they did."
Source: PA
