Norwich City 2-0 Birmingham City: Gabriel Sara and Jonathan Rowe score as Canaries beat Blues
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Gabriel Sara set Norwich on the way with his first goal since 12 August
Norwich City ended a run of three straight defeats as they beat Birmingham City with two quickfire strikes at Carrow Road.
Gabriel Sara headed the Canaries in front on 55 minutes before Jonathan Rowe settled the outcome just five minutes later.
After losing at home to Leicester City, followed by last weekend's 6-2 humiliation at Plymouth Argyle, and then a midweek Carabao Cup exit at Fulham, Norwich badly needed a result.
But Sara settled any home nerves when the ball was fed wide to Dimitris Giannoulis on the left and his cross was delivered perfectly for the Brazilian to nod head home from inside the six-yard box - his first goal since the second game of the season.
Then Rowe got his sixth of the season when Blues carelessly lost possession in their own half and the Norwich striker burst into the area before beating exposed former Canaries keeper John Ruddy low to his left.
Koji Miyoshi hit the crossbar with a well-struck shot as the visitors sought a response.
But this was a fifth league game without a win for John Eustace's men and they have now slipped to 12th following a bright start to the season that had put them up among the early pacesetters.
Who's next?
Norwich now have back-to-back away games this week, at Swansea City on Wednesday followed by a trip to Coventry City on Saturday.
Blues face two home night games in the space of three days, against Huddersfield Town on Tuesday, and then their first derby of the season on Friday, against a revitalised West Bromwich Albion.
Norwich City head coach David Wagner:
"The Plymouth defeat showed what can happen when you lose your structure in a game. It is not a match I like talking about. It was good that we put it to bed. I couldn't be happier with the way we played today.
"We looked in control, we defended well, and we created our moments. We scored two excellent goals and after that our game management was really good.
"There is no doubt we got what we deserved - there was a lot of focus out there, a lot of effort and most importantly we won.
"The players learned their lessons from the previous league game. There have been two good performances since then, at Fulham in the cup as well as this."
Birmingham City boss John Eustace told BBC WM:
"We had a chance to go one up after the break before they had scored and then the manner with which we conceded the two goals was very disappointing.
"But nobody misses chances on purpose and we just have to keep on believing.
"We didn't deserve to lose at Watford and Preston and should have beaten QPR in our last home game.
"We were up against a top team, with top players, who will probably finish in the top two or three this season and that needs to be taken into account."