Ruthless Norwich cruise past Swansea

Posted Sunday, November 25, 2018 by PA

Norwich cemented their place at the top of the Championship table with a ruthless 4-1 victory at Swansea.

Daniel Farke’s men took full advantage of a defensive horror show in the first half to go 3-0 up thanks to a Mike van der Hoorn own goal and strikes from Emi Buendia and Marco Stiepermann.

Daniel James scored his first league goal to give the home supporters a glimmer of hope before half-time, but that was quickly extinguished by Norwich striker Teemu Pukki.

The visitors arrived at the Liberty Stadium on the back of five straight victories that had put them two points clear at the top of the Championship.

The high-flying Canaries were facing a Swansea side on their best run of form under Graham Potter, but that was soon to come to an end.

It took only 18 minutes for Farke’s men to unlock the Swansea defence and stamp their authority on the game.

Stiepermann charged downfield and played a delicate through ball to Pukki.

The Canaries marksman looked like he was ready to unleash a shot on goal but sent a perfectly-weighted ball across the front of goal, and the scrambling van der Hoorn stuck out a leg to divert it into his own net.

Swansea were their own worst enemies again six minutes later when Bersant Celina came deep to receive a short goal-kick from Erwin Mulder.

The Manchester City academy product was quickly robbed of the ball by Buendia, who took his time to pick out the bottom corner to make it 2-0 – and the leaders were not done there.

Their devastating inter-play came to the fore again when Pukki used his head to caress the ball back to Buendia, who found Max Aarons in acres of space.

The right-back sent the ball across the face of goal to give Stiepermann a tap-in to all-but secure three points.

But the Swansea fans finally had something to shout about five minutes before half-time when Norwich keeper Tim Krul spilled a long-range Kyle Naughton effort and then blocked Oli McBurnie’s follow-up attempt to James, who passed the ball into an empty net.

Potter sent Wilfried Bony and Martin Olsson into the action at half-time as Swansea attempted to close the gap to a single goal.

But their introductions could not make up for their side’s defensive frailties as Norwich scored a fourth after 61 minutes.

Onel Hernandez beat Connor Roberts and gave the ball to Pukki, who swivelled and shot into the bottom corner from eight yards.