Teemu Pukki scored his eighth goal of the season to help Norwich City produce one of the narrow football scores of the weekend in the Championship. Swansea paid the price for a sluggish start after a month of inactivity as the Finnish striker scored inside the first minute. The striker had failed to score in his previous five games. Pukki scored after just 58 seconds, and even though Swansea dominated the remainder of the game, the home team lacked the finesse and the cutting edge to get past the well-prepared Canaries’ defense. For manager Dean Smith’s team, it was their fifth road victory of the year. Swansea, on the other hand, lost for the sixth time in a row and are now two points out of the play-off positions.
Swansea got the game going as though they had not played in twelve, much alone one, months. They lost control of the ball right after the kickoff, and Pukki should have scored after errors by Ben Cabango and Joel Latibeaudiere in the next six seconds. The Norwich striker’s attempt was blocked for a corner, but he did not have to wait long for the game’s first goal as Swansea failed to stop Gabriel Sara’s inswinging ball, and Pukki scored at the far post following a flick-on by Kenny McLean.
Swansea continued to control the ball, but the visitors were able to hold onto their advantage thanks to some desperate tackling from Sam McCallum and Grant Hanley. Cabango also made a timely block to stop Sara from scoring from 12 yards when Norwich replied. Just before halftime, Matt Grimes made another mistake that allowed Josh Sargent to enter the game, but the American striker missed the far post with his cross-shot. At the start of the second half, Norwich rode their luck once more since Manning and Jamie Paterson were both unable to turn complex build-up play into meaningful efforts on goal. Russell Martin, the head coach of Swansea, added two more players who had served in the World Cup.
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