Report | Swansea City 2 Stoke City 0
Zan Vipotnik’s 19th goal of the season and a brilliant late strike from Liam Cullen helped Swansea City stretch their unbeaten home record to 10 Championship games with victory over 10-man Stoke City at the Swansea.com Stadium.
The Slovenian headed home a corner early in the second half to break the deadlock, and it was the decisive blow of a contest of no little drama.
The opening half was a helter skelter affair with both sides creating opportunities, Stoke having a goal correctly ruled out for offside, and then having Sorba Thomas dismissed a matter of moments later.
From that point on Swansea were always in the ascendancy, and Cullen put paid to any late nerves as he spotted the keeper off his line to score spectaculrly from 45 yards in stoppage time and seal the win.
In the end it did not impact the final outcome, while Cameron Burgess was excellent in defence as Swansea kept another clean sheet on home turf.
The Swans showed four changes from defeat at Ipswich as Josh Key, Goncalo Franco, Ronald and Vipotnik came back into the starting line-up at the expense of Melker Widell, Malick Yalcouye, Gustavo Nunes and Cullen.
The Swans made a positive start, Key bringing play forward before lovely link work between Vipotnik and Ethan Galbraith saw the latter send a bobbling shot into the gloves of Tommy Simkin.
The hosts made all the early running, forcing a series of set-piece opportunities and pinning the Potters in their own half.
Excellent work down the left between Jisung Eom and Josh Tymon saw the latter force the keeper into a fingertip save as the Swans continued to pile on the pressure.
Stoke eventually managed to escape their own territory, with Franco making an important block from a rasping Tatsuki Seko volley.
Key topped that seconds later, throwing himself in the way of Eric Bocat’s effort after Jesurun Rak-Sakyi had gotten away from Tymon and Cameron Burgess.
Burgess then denied Bae Jun-ho’s strike, before Lawrence Vigouroux made a stunning one-handed stop to prevent Ashley Phillips’ header finding the net.
It was proving a wild opening, and it didn’t cease when Galbraith surged towards the area and went down after having his shirt pulled just outside. Referee Ruebyn Ricardo appeared to point to the spot, but then allowed play to continue with Swansea in possession.
The carnage continued. Stoke had what looked to the opener ruled out after Vigouroux was impeded by Phillips blocking his efforts to reach Ben Wilmot’s header from an offside position.
But the dust had barely settled on that decision when Sorba was shown a second yellow card having for a challenge on Franco as they contested a bouncing ball in midfield.
The game remained goalless at the end of a tumultuous opening period, but the nature of the contest was now very different as Stoke dropped deep and prepared to soak up pressure with their numerical disadvantage.
But Swansea broke the deadlock just seven minutes after the restart. Tymon was on the money with his set-piece delivery and Vipotnik arrived unmarked to glance a header into the far corner of the net.
The hosts looked to quickly add to their tally, Ronald seeing a shot blocked, before Key curled a strike over the bar from the Brazilian’s lay-off.
Franco could not finish off a wonderful flowing attack that had started by Swansea’s own corner flag, before Galbraith sent a low drive wide of the target a few minutes later.
The lead remained at a solitary goal heading into the final 20 minutes and Stoke began to commit more numbers forward as they looked for a way back into the game.
Substitute Gustavo Nunes spurned a superb chance from Franco’s unselfish pass when he took a chance when the ball was there to be hit first time, while substitutes Widell and Cullen saw late strikes deflected off target.
But Cullen would have the last word as Simkin, still out of his goal having cleared away a ball near the corner flag, had to watch helplessly as the Wales international picked his spot and floated the ball over his head and into the net as Swansea made it 26 points from the last 30 available in SA1.
Swansea City: Lawrence Vigouroux; Josh Key, Ben Cabango (captain), Cameron Burgess, Josh Tymon; Marko Stamenic (Jay Fulton 80), Goncalo Franco (Joel Ward 90), Ethan Galbraith (Melker Widell 80); Ronald (Gustavo Nunes 66), Jisung Eom (Liam Cullen 80), Zan Vipotnik.
Unused Substitutes: Andy Fisher, Malick Yalcouye, Leo Walta, Ollie Cooper.
Stoke City: Tommy Simkin, Sorba Thomas, Bae Jun-ho, Tatsuki Seko, Steven Nzonzi, Ben Wilmot (captain) (Maxi Talovierov 75), Eric Bocat (Junior Tchamadeu 70), Jesurun Rak-Sakyi (Million Manhoef 54), Ben Gibson, Ashley Phillips, Lamine Cisse (Milan Smits 54).
Unused Substitutes: Frank Fielding, Ben Pearson, Tomas Rigo, Raphael-Pijus Otegbayo, Gabriel Kelly.
Referee: Ruebyn Ricardo
Attendance: 16,147