Swansea City 1-0 Norwich City: FLW report as own goal hands Swans victory over Canaries | OneFootball

FLW report live from the Swansea.com Stadium as Swansea City host Norwich City in the Championship

Swansea City recorded their second league win of the season with a hard-fought victory over Norwich City.

Swansea's only goal came when Amankwah Forson put the ball in his own net after four minutes, but some impressive last-ditch defending, particularly in the dying embers of the game, ensured Luke Williams' side held on for all three points.

Norwich had chances of their own in what was an end-to-end encounter, but Johannes Hoff Thorup's side will make the long trip back home to Norfolk empty-handed.

Swansea City 1-0 Norwich City

Swansea took the lead in the fourth minute when Oli Cooper fed Jisung Eom in a dangerous position and his cross was turned into the net by Norwich City's Amakwah Forson.

Norwich City nearly hit back immediately after, but Josh Sargent's goalbound shot was blocked from close range, letting the Swans off the hook after catching them cold following their goal moments earlier.

It was a lively start to the game with both sides creating chances, and Swansea looked set to make it 2-0, but Ronald's ball to Liam Cullen was intercepted, with the Welsh international set to go through on goal.

Goncalo Franco gave the ball away in a dangerous area, which led to Sargent getting a shot away on target, but Lawrence Vigouroux made a fantastic stop to keep his side in the lead.

Eom then came close when he forced Angus Gunn to tip his shot over from 25 yards, with the Scottish international reluctant to take any risk with the winger's curling effort.

There was a real end-to-end feel in the opening stages, and Norwich had a half chance when the ball broke to Oscar Schwartau, but his effort was blocked and went out for a corner.

As we got into the last ten minutes of the first half, Vigoroux was forced into action when Forson nearly made amends for his previous own goal, but his looping header was tipped around the post for a corner.

Franco nearly doubled his side's lead on the stroke of half-time, but Callum Doyle blocked his powerful shot after good work from Cooper had created the opportunity for Swansea's Portuguese summer signing.

Eom was causing all sorts of problems for Norwich and Marcelino Nunez went into the book in added time after a pull on the South Korean international's shirt, bringing an end to first half proceedings.

The second half began with a Norwich booking too, and Canaries skipper McLean was shown a yellow card by referee John Busby for diving.

Swansea had the first real chance of the second half when Ronald found Cullen unmarked in the box, but the Welshman couldn't connect cleanly with his header and the Canaries were left off the hook.

The second half was proving a more cagey affair, with neither side able to get a real foothold in the game, which certainly suited the hosts as they looked to hold on to their slender lead.

The Canaries had a half-chance with 15 minutes left but Gabriel Forsyth's shot from just outside the box after the ball broke to him from a corner was high and wide of Vigouroux's goal.

However, down the other end, Florian Bianchini came so close to scoring his first goal for the club, but despite sliding in, he was unable to connect with Cooper's dangerous cross across the face of goal.

Borja Sainz made a dangerous break into the Swansea penalty area with just seven minutes remaining but his ball to Sargent was intercepted by Harry Darling, preventing what would have been a huge chance for the Canaries.

Bianchini nearly sealed the win for Swansea when he pounced on a loose ball, but his strike was straight at Gunn in the Norwich goal, effectively keeping his side in the game.

It nearly proved costly as Sainz broke through on goal, but an incredible last-ditch tackle from Ben Cabango put an end to the attack, and he was on hand to clear the ball away a minute later when the ball broke to Sainz yet again.

Sainz had another late chance to draw the game level in the 96th minute when he found himself in space in Swansea's penalty area, but his shot went way over the bar, and meant that his side left south Wales empty-handed.

Josh Key - 7

Ben Cabango - 7

Harry Darling - 7

Kyle Naughton - 7 (Josh Tymon (70 - 6)

Goncalo Franco - 8 (Joe Allen (79) - 6)

Matt Grimes - 7

Ollie Cooper - 7 (Myles Peart-Harris (79) - 6)

Ronald - 7

Jisung Eom - 8 (Florian Bianchini (70) - 7)

Liam Cullen - 6 (Zan Vipotnik (79) - 6)

Unused subs: Jon McLaughlin, Nelson Abbey, Jay Fulton, Azeem Abdulai.

Norwich City player ratings

Angus Gunn - 6

Jack Stacey - 5 (Liam Gibbs (79) - 6)

Shane Duffy - 6

Callum Doyle - 6

Ben Chrisene - 6 (Jose Cordoba (70) - 6)

Kenny McLean - 5

Marcelino Nunez - 6 (Onel Hernandez 79) - 7)

Oscar Schwartau 5 (Ante Crnac (57) - 6)

Amankwah Forson - 6 (Gabriel Forsyth (70) - 6)

Borja Sainz - 5

Josh Sargent - 6

Unused subs: George Long, Grant Hanley, Kellen Fisher, Kaide Gordon.

Luke Williams' post-match reaction

Swansea boss Williams was pleased with his side's character after putting a run of three games without a win behind them to seal all three points against the Canaries.

He said: "It can go either way this game for sure. They created good chances as well, but we started the game in the correct way, and we're the dominant team from the first half. Up until around an hour, there's not too much in the game. I think the last 15 minutes were very tense, and we had to show a lot of character to defend the box.

"That's good because we showed a little bit of everything we're about today, and I'm going to take the points. Sometimes, in football, you play brilliantly, and you don't get anything, and other times it can go either way, and you're on the fortunate side, so I'll take that.

"We're playing against a very capable side, and we had a lot of young players with not much Championship experience learning their trade, so to put it into a performance and dominate for parts of the game against a very decent Norwich side was impressive."

Johannes Hoff Thorup's post-match reaction

Norwich boss Thorup saw his side lose a Championship game for the first time since the opening day of the season and was disappointed with the way his team started the game, particularly the goal they conceded.

He said: "Swansea did well, and they put in a good performance, but I think we lose to ourselves because of the way we performed in the first half. We didn't have control of the game, didn't take our chances and invited them in with a silly goal to begin with.

"No matter how you perform, you can always concede a goal, but it's about a response afterwards, and we created two very good chances five to ten minutes after the goal, so the response was good, but what I don't like is that it was too open and there was too much back and forth.

"I liked the second half way better, but there are still some areas to improve on and, of course, everybody can see that we need to be more effective and show more quality up front, so we get at least a point from a game like today."