Swansea beat Blackburn in clash of the managerless Championship clubs

Alan Sheehan’s second spell in caretaker charge of Swansea got off to a dream start after his side beat fellow managerless side Blackburn 3-0 at the Swansea.com Stadium.

Goals just before the break from Žan Vipotnik and Myles Peart-Harris – both restored to the starting line-up by Sheehan – gave Swansea a commanding and fully-deserved advantage at the break.

Peart-Harris then set up top scorer Liam Cullen for a third in the 62nd minute of the Sky Bet Championship contest.

Rovers, who had won both of their previous games under caretaker head coach David Lowe, were poor, although Andreas Weimann was twice denied by home goalkeeper Lawrence Vigouroux in the first half.

It may well have been a different game had Weimann’s header from Yuri Ribeiro’s cross from the left, which look destined for the top corner inside two minutes, not been met with a fine one-handed save from Vigouroux to palm it away for a corner.

Cullen was presented with a glorious chance to put the hosts ahead in the 14th minute but failed to connect after Vipotnik had got to the byline and pulled the ball back into his path.

The hosts then had another good sight of goal in the 26th minute, when Ronald’s ball played in right-back Josh Key but, with plenty of time and space inside the box, he could only side-foot his resulting effort straight to Rovers keeper Aynsley Pears.

Vigouroux denied Weimann again in the 36th minute and, after missing another chance to go in front, Rovers will be having nightmares about the opener they gifted Swansea three minutes later.

Having won a free-kick out on the left, Josh Tymon sent the ball into the Rovers box and after they got themselves in a tangle trying to clear, Slovenian Vipotnik eventually poked home his first goal in 11 matches.

Swansea fully deserved their lead and it got even better in first half stoppage time. After Vipotnik and Dion Sanderson had a brief tussle, the ball ran loose and Peart-Harris was there to seize on it, shrugging off Dominic Hyam before racing through and calmly rolling the ball beyond Pears.

Blackburn needed a response after the break but the second half was less than a minute old when Pears passed the ball straight to Vipotnik and only a last-ditch block from Hyam stopped him pulling the trigger.

Lowe made a triple substitution in the 56th minute, sending on Emmanuel Dennis, John Buckley and Augustus Kargbo, in a bid to turn the tide but it failed to do the trick.

Swansea continued to bombard Blackburn and Cullen put the result beyond doubt just past the hour mark, side-footing home after Goncalo Franco had played Peart-Harris in down the left.