It took two fluke goals, the product of fortuitous deflections, to bring Swansea their first win in the Premier League since 4 December and to push Fulham even deeper into the relegation mire.

A poor match was settled by a shot from the edge of the penalty area by Jonjo Shelvey, wickedly deflected by Brede Hangeland’s attempted block, and a header from Chico Flores which went in off Dimitar Berbatov.

It was a fitting outcome to a scrappy affair, but Michael Laudrup and his team won’t mind that after eight league games without a win, five of them lost. Fulham, with nine points from a possible 45, are beginning to look like a lost cause after their 12th defeat in the last 15.

Going into the game, Fulham were a single point clear of the bottom three and Swansea only two better off. Both therefore were in urgent need of a win here. The Welsh club were reluctant to acknowledge it, but they had sunk into the relegation quagmire. Fulham’s shortcomings are easy to identify, much less so to rectify. They concede more goals than anyone else in the league – more than two per match on average – and find scoring them horribly difficult.

Swansea’s superior passing quickly gave them territorial control, but Wilfried Bony, Shelvey and Ashley Williams were all off target when they might have done better, enabling Fulham to survive. They could even have burgled the lead when Kieran Richardson’s in-swinging free-kick from the right invited Hangeland to score close in. It was an invitation the tall centre-half declined, heading over the bar when it seemed easier to score.

Ashkan Dejagah did no better with another header which flew straight at Gerhard Tremmel, wasting an excellent left-wing cross from the pacey Alexander Kacaniklic. Fulham, however, drew confidence from the creation of these two chances and it became a less lopsided contest.

That said, Swansea remained the better team and were tantalisingly close to taking the lead in the 40th minute, when Shelvey shivered the crossbar from the edge of the D.

As the rain came pouring down in the second half, the question was whether the Swans were going to sink or swim. Fearing the worst, the crowd sounded increasingly concerned.

Flores had a header clawed out from under the bar by Maarten Stekelenburg, going high to his right and Jonathan de Guzmán tested him from distance.

Nathan Dyer was greeted like a hero on his introduction from the bench, and within two minutes he had set up the goal with which the stalest of stalemates was at last broken. The winger’s short, squared pass found Shelvey, whose shot from 20 yards beat Stekelenburg with the aid of a huge deflection off Hangeland. De Guzman, letting fly from 20 yards, would have put the outcome beyond doubt midway through the second half but for a top notch save from Stekelenburg. It was finally put to bed after 75 minutes when De Guzmán’s free-kick from the right was headed in by Flores, with that maladroit assist by Berbatov.

• Premier League
• Swansea City
• Fulham

Joe Lovejoy

theguardian.com