Norwich City continued their impressive recent run, picking up a 2-1 victory over Sunderland in the English Premier League game at Carrow Road.
Sunderland were in desperate need of a win, as the future of manager Martin O'Neill continued to swirl, but it was Chris Hughton's Norwich that made all the early running, which was rewarded by two goals.
Sebastian Bassong bundled in Robert Snodgrass' freekick in the eighth minute, before Anthony Pilkington, the man who scored the winner against Manchester United recently, made it 2-0 in the 37th minute, latching onto a long ball from Bradley Johnson, before expertly finding the back of the net.
Sunderland came back into the game through Craig Gardner, who reduced the deficit a minute before halftime. However, despite dominating the second period, the away side could not find the much-needed equalizer as Norwich hung on for another win.
"That was the third game in a week with the same team, I'm really delighted," Hughton said after the match. "I thought we were excellent in the first half, but it was very difficult to sustain that for 90 minutes, particularly with the timing of their goal.
"That gave them a real lift and they showed at times the real quality they've got in their team.
"They showed real sharpness around the box in the wide areas, I thought Johnson was always a threat, and we had to dig deep in that second half."
"The timing of their goal changed the team talk slightly and the fact we'd played that well in the first half, the question was could we sustain it over 90 minutes? I knew that would give them a lift and I knew that we'd have to dig deep.
"The game opened up second half but can't fault any of the efforts from my team today."
Norwich climbed up to 12th with 19 points, while Sunderland are fourth bottom on 13 points from games.
"I think first half we were brilliant," goalscorer Pilkington told Sky Sports. "We passed the ball really well and we've scored two good goals and right at the end of the first half we've conceded a sloppy goal.
"We didn't think they were in it too much and it's made the second half difficult. But we've shown how strong we are again.
"It's a massive win for us and I think we're eight unbeaten now. We're picking up a lot of points so we're going in the right direction. It's a good place to be at the moment."