Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Everton was just Swansea's third home loss of the season and ended an excellent run of three successive victories that had moved them into the top half of the table.

The Toffees' success, 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.

That made for a difficult afternoon for the likes of Britton, who has been a hugely influential figure in Swansea's maiden Premier League campaign, but he feels the different approach sides adopt in south Wales is a sign of their development.

"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.

"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."

While Swansea are all but guaranteed Premier League survival, they currently lie 10th and are 14 points clear of the bottom three.

But with manager Brendan Rodgers setting his sights on establishing the club as a top-flight club in the long term, 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."

Having picked up an important three points ahead of their FA Cup quarter-final replay with Sunderland on Tuesday, Everton manager David Moyes was pleased with his side's performance, particularly Baines' wonderful free-kick for their first goal just before the hour.

But the Scot also offered generous praise to Swansea counterpart Rodgers for putting a side tipped by many for relegation on the brink of safety.

He said: "It was an exquisite free-kick. The Swansea keeper (Michel Vorm) is very good and he didn't get near it.

"You can vary your tactics, we chose what we would do as their passing stats are impressive and their home record has been good.

"But Brendan will rightly say their results have been fantastic, he has done a brilliant job getting the club secure before Easter."