Michael Duff believes Swansea City have turned a corner since their derby defeat to Cardiff City – a re-set he says was underlined by their 2-1 victory over Norwich City.
Bashir Humphreys hammered home his first senior goal to make it three wins in a row for the Swans on Wednesday night.
The 20-year-old left-back powered a half-volley into the roof of the net from an 82nd-minute corner to make it 10 points from the last 12 for Swansea and move Duff’s men up to 15th in the Championship.
Since losing 2-0 to Cardiff last month, Duff has steered his team to a draw against QPR followed by victories over Sheffield Wednesday, Millwall and now Norwich.
They now stand just four points off the play-off places and Duff said: “I think the reaction we have shown since the Cardiff game has been really good, and I thought we were good value for the win.
“I was quite happy with the outcome and the performance as well. I believe that we entered the game with genuine intent, attempting to take the initiative as we have discussed.
“The high press led to the goal. Ironically, their objective results from our incorrect reporting of our one- and two-person movements in the press.
“In the second half we defended the box really well and finished the game really strongly and were good value against a really strong Norwich team.
“I think they are one of the better teams in the league. We had 20 shots and the supporters came with us at the end. It’s a pleasing evening.”
Norwich fell out of the play-off spots and head coach David Wagner said: “Obviously the result is very disappointing.
“Performance-wise, in the first half we were not good, in the second half we were much better.
“Second half, we have to kill the game. We had enough very good opportunities until 75-80 minutes.
“After that they put pressure on us with set pieces. If you don’t kill the game, then one situation can cost you.
“It’s very frustrating that we were not clinical in both boxes today and have not won a game we had opportunities to win at 1-1.”
Last season it only took the Canaries 58 seconds to open their account in Wales with a goal from their then Finnish star Teemu Pukki that turned out to be the winner.
This time it was Swansea who struck early as Jamal Lowe found the back of the net in the third minute.
Lowe nipped in to take the ball off a dithering Adam Forshaw to allow Matt Grimes to pick up the pieces and the home skipper then turned it into a one-two with Low, who scored his third goal of the season.
Norwich hit back in the 22nd minute when a long carry by Jonathan Rowe up the left flank engineered a goal for Gabriel Sara.
Rowe’s initial cross was blocked by Ben Cabango, but a second from Dimitris Giannoulis took a slight deflection before finding the head of Sara on the six-yard box.
That sparked new life into Wagner’s men and two minutes later they worked an overload on the right that enabled Jack Stacey to race up to the edge of the box before letting fire with a vicious right-foot shot that was heading into the top-left corner until Carl Rushworth in the home goal got a fingertip to it to push it past the post.
Swansea almost crept back into the lead in the 36th minute when a cross from the right was touched on by Jerry Yates, but went agonisingly wide of Angus Gunn’s far post.
The second was off to a far better start for Norwich, who put their opponents on the back foot.Soon after the restart, Swansea players received three yellow cards from referee Tom Nield in the span of seven minutes, and in the 57th minute, the incisive Rowe nearly gave the visitors the lead with a shot across goal.
The leading scorer Adam Idah, Oriel Hernandez, and Przemyslaw Placheta were all substituted in shortly after by Wagner. In the 75th minute, Placheta gave Idah a fantastic opportunity to score with a cross, but Idah somehow managed to head the ball over the crossbar after Jerry Yates had a goal disallowed for offside following a corner.
Shane Duffy somehow kept out a header from Yates at the far post, but in the 83rd minute there was no stopping Humphreys’ thunderbolt.
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