Bristol City 1-0 Norwich City: In-form Mark Sykes gives Robins win over Norwich
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Mark Sykes scored his fifth goal in six games for Bristol City against Norwich
Bristol City extended their unbeaten run to nine matches in all competitions with a 1-0 win over Norwich at Ashton Gate.
Mark Sykes scored his fifth goal in six games, slotting the ball under Angus Gunn to put the hosts ahead after 24 minutes.
Gabriel Sara was denied an all-but certain second-half goal thanks to an outstretched boot from Bristol City defender Rob Atkinson, while a save from Gunn denied substitute Harry Cornick a goal on his second Robins appearance.
The win moves Nigel Pearson's side up to 13th in the table, three points behind Norwich, who stay 10th.
Victory brought to an end an 11-match winless run for the Robins against Norwich, with their last win over the Canaries coming in February 2009.
Norwich saw a couple of half-chances go begging in a quiet opening 20 minutes, as Josh Sargent directed a header downwards and past the post and Gabriel Sara dragged a shot wide.
But it was the Robins who took the lead out of nothing on 24 minutes. Cameron Pring won possession in the centre of the pitch and squeezed it through to Sykes, who cut inside before side-footing underneath Gunn - who should have done better to save it - into the Canaries' goal.
Teemu Pukki had Norwich's best chance, forcing goalkeeper Max O'Leary into his only real save of the opening half as he got down to palm the striker's shot away for a corner.
A scrappy second 45 minutes followed where Bristol City were the only team to record a shot on target, although Atkinson was on-hand to prevent Sara's shot finding the net, while a sliding block from Zak Vyner denied Pukki again.
It was Cornick - a January transfer deadline day signing from Luton - who had the best chance to secure the game for the hosts after coming on as a substitute.
But in a one-on-one with Gunn 10 minutes from time, the Canaries keeper redeemed himself after his earlier error by coming out on top and saving the effort.
The loss is Norwich's second in a row and sees them fall four points away from the play-off places.
Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson told BBC Radio Bristol:
"As a performance it was good. It had elements about it in both directions which I'm very, very pleased about and that is that we showed quality but we were also very dogged and resilient when we were put under pressure.
"Both individually, but more importantly collectively, it was a very good defensive performance but we also created some good opportunities too.
"[It is] great to keep our positive run going but even more importantly, good to pit our wits against one of the more fancied sides in the division. It's not a convincing win but it's a win where I don't think anybody can question whether we deserved it.
"It was always going to be a tight game and we limited them to just a few situations which looked particularly dangerous but outside of that, I thought we were excellent."
Norwich head coach David Wagner told BBC Radio Norfolk:
"[I am] frustrated about the performance in the first half. The first half was poor. We were too slow in our passing and our movement, took too many touches, we were not able to really create moments. We were not able to create the energy which we stand for.
"Second half [it] was better, which wasn't too difficult after the poor first half which we did. We showed more intensity, more energy, we were better in our passing, we passed more forward rather than sideways or backwards.
"But we were not able to create the clear-cut chances and unfortunately this frustrates as we lost this game."