Swansea City vs Norwich City. Sky Bet Championship.
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Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash between Swansea City and Norwich City at the Swansea.com Stadium on Wednesday night | Bashir Humphreys scores first senior goal in third straight win for Swans
Wednesday 4 October 2023 23:26, UK
Bashir Humphreys hammered home his first senior goal to make it three wins in a row for Swansea as they beat Norwich 2-1.
The 20-year-old left-back powered a half-volley into the roof of the net from an 82nd-minute corner to make it 10 points from the last 12 for Swansea and move Michael Duff's men up to 15th in the Championship.
Last season it only took the Canaries 58 seconds to open their account in Wales with a goal from their then Finnish star Teemu Pukki that turned out to be the winner.
This time it was Swansea who struck early as Jamal Lowe found the back of the net in the third minute.
Lowe nipped in to take the ball off a dithering Adam Forshaw to allow Matt Grimes to pick up the pieces and the home skipper then turned it into a one-two with Low, who scored his third goal of the season.
Norwich hit back in the 22nd minute when a long carry by Jonathan Rowe up the left flank engineered a goal for Gabriel Sara. Rowe's initial cross was blocked by Ben Cabango, but a second from Dimitris Giannoulis took a slight deflection before finding the head of Sara on the six-yard box.
That sparked new life into David Wagner's men and two minutes later they worked an overload on the right that enabled Jack Stacey to race up to the edge of the box before letting fire with a vicious right-foot shot that was heading into the top-left corner until Carl Rushworth in the home goal got a fingertip to it to push it past the post.
Swansea almost crept back into the lead in the 36th minute when a cross from the right was touched on by Jerry Yates, but went agonisingly wide of Angus Gunn's far post.
Norwich started the second far more positively and put their hosts on the back foot. Referee Tom Nield issued three yellow cards to Swansea players in the space of seven minutes soon after the restart and a shot across goal from the dynamic Rowe almost gave the visitors the lead in the 57th minute.
Moments later Wagner made three substitutions, bringing on top scorer Adam Idah, Oriel Hernandez and Przemyslaw Placheta. Placheta presented Idah with a golden chance to score with a cross that he somehow header over the bar in the 75th minute, shortly after Jerry Yates had a goal ruled offside from a corner.
Shane Duffy somehow kept out a header from Yates at the far post, but in the 83rd minute there was no stopping Humphreys' thunderbolt.
Swansea's Michael Duff:
"I was delighted with the result and the performance. We started with real intent and the first goal came from a high press. Then their goal came from us getting our press wrong. In the second half we defended our box well and got the winner.
"Norwich are one of the best teams in the league and we finished very strongly against them. The fans really got behind us in the added six minutes at the end because our lads were out on their feet."
Norwich's David Wagner:
"We didn't do our job properly in each box, goals change games and we didn't take our chances. That's three away defeats in a row now and we lost a game that we could have won. We have to be better in both boxes. After two away defeats in a row we knew we had a chance to pick up some points in an important game. It was there for us, but we didn't do our job. Obviously the result is very disappointing. Performance-wise, first half we were not good, second half we were much better.
"Second half we have to kill the game. We had enough very good opportunities until 75-80 minutes. After that they put pressure on us with set-pieces. If you don't kill the game, then one situation can cost you. It's very frustrating that we were not clinical in both boxes today and have not won a game we had opportunities to win at 1-1."
