Norwich City 1 Swansea City 1
It had been a long time since I last went to Carrow Road, in fact it was that long ago most of the ground was standing when I last went. Then it was turn up on the day, but nowadays getting in the ground is a bit more complicated, so when I saw an offer for the Swansea game I thought that I would give it a go. I was quite impressed with the ground and the game was entertaining enough.
Most people probably thought that Swansea would be groggy after their exertions in Europe on Thursday, but it was Norwich who looked more sleepy at the start. On 12 minutes Sebastian Bassong was caught napping by Nathan Dyer who lashed on to a half chance to put the visitors 1-0 up. 2 minutes later Norwich could have got on to level terms if the referee had been more sympathetic when Leroy Fer's header hit Angel Rangel on the arm, but the official wasn't interested.
Up until the half hour mark Norwich continued to push for the equaliser, and Gary Hooper seemed to be in most of the thick of the action. Swansea with the exception of Dyer who continued to harass the Norwich defence seemed happy to pass it around and Michel Vorm was time wasting with only 20 minutes on the clock.
On 41 minutes disaster struck for Swansea when Bassong fell on Dyer and Dyer was taken off with a nasty ankle injury. In the time that was added to the half after the injury Stephen Whittaker and Bassong came close before Hooper levelled up matters with a wonderful strike from 25 yards out.
The second half, for the most part, saw Norwich pinning Swansea into their own half. The best chances fell for Michael Turner who saw Jordi Amat head his shot onto his own crossbar on 68 minutes; and on 76 a great one handed save by Vorm denied Hooper. Swansea, although they seemed content with a draw also had a couple of chances in the closing moments with Wilfred Bony and Jonjo Shelvey coming close.
Norwich probably deserved the win and Swansea were probably happier with the draw.
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