Report | Swansea City 2 Norwich City 1
A stunning brace from Zan Vipotnik helped Swansea City return to winning ways with victory over Norwich City at the Swansea.com Stadium.
The striker gave the Swans the lead against the Canaries with a rasping near-post drive, but that was cancelled out by Jovon Makama’s close-range effort just before the break.
But Vipotnik fired home from 20 yards with just over 20 minutes left to give Alan Sheehan’s side all three points and a first league win on home soil since August.
It was a deserved reward for a performance where Swansea’s energy saw them have the better of the opening half-hour, and much of the second half.
The Swans had shown four changes from the midweek defeat to Queens Park Rangers. Josh Key, Liam Cullen, Ronald and Vipotnik came into the side with Malick Yalcouye suspended, and Goncalo France, Zeidane Inoussa and Adam Idah dropping to the bench.
Sheehan had called for his side to start with more energy than they had in midweek against QPR, and there was a noticeable bite in the Swansea press during the early stages.
And that aggression brought about the early chance from which they opened the scoring.
Marko Stamenic drove forward purposefully from midfield and slid in Vipotnik, who absolutely rifled a rising strike past Vladan Kovacevic and into the roof of the net.
Another big chance soon followed, Vipotnik cushioning a lovely ball into the path of Jisung Eom, the Korean raced into the area, but was unable to check inside the covering defender to get a shot away.
Norwich were enjoying plenty of the ball but were offering little genuine threat with it, and the visitors nearly fell further behind 23 minutes in.
A sweeping Swansea attack worked the ball to Ronald, his low shot got under Kovacevic, but rebounded off the inside of the far post and into the grateful arms of the Norwich keeper.
At the other end, Kenny McLean broke clean through the middle of the park for the Canaries put dragged his shot wide from the edge of the Swansea area.
Mirko Topic then forced Lawrence Vigouroux into his first save of the contest with a left-footed curling effort after a prolonged period of Norwich possession just after the half-hour mark.
And the Canaries levelled shortly before the break after a lovely turn from Liam Gibbs in midfield had sent Josh Sargent into the area, the strike clipped the ball across goal and Makama was on hand to bundle home from close range.
It left the hosts needing to regroup at the interval, and they made a bright start to the second period with Eom having a shot blocked after a fine run had taken him between two defenders and into the area.
Swansea were making most of the running, but they needed Vigouroux to tip over Jeffrey Schlupp’s rising drive from a swift Norwich counter before Kovacevic made a vital claim to cut out a low Josh Tymon cross with a host of white shirts arriving at the far post.
But the keeper could do absolutely nothing to prevent Vipotnik restoring Swansea’s lead.
A loose pass allowed Eom to quickly feed the Slovenian, who got the ball out of his feet before lashing an unstoppable low strike into the bottom corner.
Norwich had plenty of ball as they chased another equaliser during the closing stages, but the Swans saw out the final minutes comfortably to claim the spoils.
Swansea City: Lawrence Vigouroux; Josh Key, Ben Cabango (captain), Cameron Burgess, Josh Tymon; Marko Stamenic (Goncalo Franco 74), Ethan Galbraith, Liam Cullen (Jay Fulton 79); Ronald, Jisung Eom (Melker Widell 74); Zan Vipotnik (Adam Idah 79) (Kaelan Casey 92).
Substitutes: Andy Fisher, Ishe Samuels-Smith, Manuel Benson, Zeidane Inoussa.
Norwich City: Vladan Kovacevic, Jack Stacey, Jakov Medic, Harry Darling, Pelle Mattsson, Liam Gibbs (Emiliano Marcondes 70), Josh Sargent (Mathias Kvistgaarden 70), Mirko Topic (Jacob Wright 46), Kenny McLean (captain), Jovon Makama (Matej Jurasek 82), Oscar Schwartau (Jeffrey Schlupp 46).
Unused Substitutes: Daniel Grimshaw, Ruairi McConville, Kellen Fisher, Errol Mundle-Smith
Referee: Adam Herczeg
Attendance: 14,729