Michael Obafemi’s header secured three points for Russell Martin’s Swansea City against a below-par Blackburn Rovers.<\/h2>\n

Ryan Manning was sent off, but the atmosphere and a resolute backline helped the hosts over the line.<\/p>\n

Blackburn created the first chance, with Ryan Nyambe surging down the right-hand side to squeeze back for John Buckley, who could only scuff an effort into Alex Fisher’s grasp.<\/p>\n

Russell Martin’s men had been crying out for creativity in matches previous. The jigsaw piece came in the returning form of Jamie Paterson.<\/p>\n

His cross, placed almost perfectly into Michael Obafemi’s path, was nodded home with ease by the Irish international for his second Swansea goal.<\/p>\n

Darragh Lenihan struck the post for Rovers just moments later, with Buckley skying an easy finish to equalise.<\/p>\n

Rovers thought they had a penalty, but Buckley, again involved, was rightly booked for simulation by referee Tim Robinson.<\/p>\n

Joe Rothwell had the first chance of the second half, beating three Swansea defenders before his shot ricocheted for a corner.<\/p>\n

Swansea were down to ten in the early embers of the second period, after Ryan Manning recklessly challenged whilst on a yellow card. Ryan Bennett and Korey Smith replaced Olivier Ntcham and the goalscorer, Obafemi, in response.<\/p>\n

One would expect a ‘kitchen sink’ to be thrown in the direction of Fisher’s net. It wasn’t until the 87th minute, approximately half an hour after the sending off, that they tested him.<\/p>\n

Jan Paul van Hecke’s looping header needed to be saved, but Lenihan’s sliced effort, which flashed past the post, luckily didn’t.<\/p>\n

Scott Wharton was the next to test the former MK Dons man, but his header from close range was easy to block.<\/p>\n

The result sees the Swans climb to 35 points, with Blackburn still clutch onto second with Bournemouth and leaders Fulham having two games in hand.<\/p>\n

Swansea City: <\/strong>Fisher; Cabango, Downes, Manning; Christie, Ntcham, Grimes (C), Wolf; Paterson; Obafemi, Piroe.<\/p>\n

Subs: Hamer, Burns, Latibeaudiere, Fulton, Bennett, Smith, Joseph.<\/p>\n

Blackburn Rovers:\u00a0<\/strong>Kaminski, Nyambe, Lenihan, Van Hecke, Wharton, Zeefuik, Travis, Rothwell, Buckley, Giles, Hedges<\/p>\n

Subs: Pears, Ayala, Rankin-Costello, Davenport, Johnson, Khadra, Brereton Diaz<\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter\u00a0<\/i><\/b>@ProstInt<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

[columns]
\n[column size=”1\/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”609″ heading=”EFL” heading_type=”timeline” \/][\/column]
\n[column size=”1\/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”1072″ heading=”News” heading_type=”timeline” \/][\/column]
\n[\/columns]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Swansea edge Blackburn at Swansea.com Stadium, which could be a critical result in the promotion race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":275238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2827,1139,609,117,2824],"tags":[836,3173,2371,1439],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275263"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275321,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275263\/revisions\/275321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}