Auston Trusty scored a late winner to help Birmingham produce one of the high-scoring football scores of the weekend in the Championship. U.S. center-back Austin Trusty played the starring role, glancing in a header from a Hannibal Mejbri corner to shock the Swansea.com Stadium home crowd. The Swans appeared to be cruising to three points going into the final seconds of regulation after controlling the majority of the game. They held a 3-2 lead thanks to a goal from Dutch attacker Joel Piroe in the 57th minute, but the margin understated the Blues, who had played poorly up until that time. Swansea, however, paid a price for failing to put an end to the game. In the 90th minute, veteran striker Lukas Jutkiewicz came off the bench to ignite the chaos.
The experienced 33-year-old appeared to have given John Eustace’s team a point and stopped a run of five straight league losses with his diving header from a Maxime Colin cross. But for the visiting fans, things got even better. Swansea was down to 10 men in the last minutes of regulation time, having used all of their allotted substitutions before Joel Latibeaudiere went out, when Austin climbed highest at a set-piece, sending the away supporters into a frenzy. The Swans, who had the upper hand for significant portions of the game, will be extremely disappointed with the result.
The Blues hadn’t won in the league since defeating Reading on December 16, and it was clear why after watching their performance, which was at times terrible. But they did seize the lead. Midfielder Reda Khadra earned a penalty for his team’s first attack of the game when he chased down a Scott Hogan flicked header, pushed in front of Swans center-back Ben Cabango, and forced goalkeeper Andy Fisher to bring him down.
The visitors took the lead after Hogan drilled the penalty kick underneath Fisher’s dive, but that was the best things went for them for the rest of the first half. Swansea had the lead by the halfway point thanks to goals from Piroe and Liam Cullen, two midfielders. At the halfway point of the half, Piroe swivelled to shoot low past John Ruddy in the Birmingham goal for the equaliser before Cullen tapped in Latibeaudiere’s cross in the 29th minute following a defense-splitting through ball from Jay Fulton.
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