Championship: Argyle stun Baggies while Norwich turn heat up on Cleverley

Relegation-threatened Plymouth Argyle came from behind to upset promotion hopefuls West Bromwich Albion with a 2-1 win at Home Park. The substitute striker Ryan Hardie’s late double snatched a first victory under their new manager, Miron Muslic, and ended a 15-match winless league streak stretching back to 1 November.

Plymouth gave debuts to their new record signing Maksym Talovierov and fellow central defender Nikola Katic in a new-look back five. Talovierov made an immediate impact, playing a superb cross-field pass to Tymoteusz Puchacz, whose thumping cross sped across the face of the West Brom goalmouth.

Alex Mowatt, latching on to a pass from Darnell Furlong, had the first shot on goal with a dipping drive from 20 yards that cleared the crossbar. Argyle’s best effort of the opening half an hour came from Mustapha Bundu’s cross from the right which was headed goalwards by Callum Wright but the ball was deflected to safety by the West Brom defender Mason Holgate.

A goalmouth scramble, eventually cleared by Talovierov, led to the ball falling to Albion’s winger Mikey Johnston, who forced the first save of the match from Conor Hazard, who needed two attempts to gather the ball. With Albion applying pressure as the half ended, John Swift tried his luck from 20 yards but the ball flew wide.

Hazard made a double save to deny Torbjørn Heggem and Johnston after Mowatt’s 55th-minute corner was headed back from the far post by Holgate. Hazard could only parry Heggem’s audacious bicycle-kick attempt but was able to hold on to Johnston’s point-blank follow-up.

The substitute Jayson Molumby’s first meaningful contribution was turning the captain Jed Wallace’s cross past Hazard after he beat Katic to a loose ball down the right to open the scoring.

Callum Styles handled Hardie’s shot from inside the box at close range and the referee, Dean Whitestone, pointed to the spot. Hardie sent Alex Palmer the wrong way to equalise.

The Scot doubled his tally with the winning goal in the 88th minute after latching on to a brilliant curling pass from Puchacz. Hardie’s first attempt was charged down by Heggem, but Hardie made no mistake with his follow-up, planting the ball past Palmer and into the far corner from an acute angle on the right of the penalty area.

Josh Sargent hit the winner as Norwich kept their playoff hopes on track with a 1-0 victory at 10-man Watford, turning up the pressure on Tom Cleverley.

The first-half strike by the American was enough against opponents who had Vakoun Bayo dismissed in the first half. The Ivorian forward was given a straight red card after 34 minutes, when he appeared to shove Emiliano Marcondes in the throat at a corner. Norwich punished the 10 men four minutes before the interval, when a Marcondes free-kick deflected to Lucien Mahovo, who forced Bond to save before Sargent drove home from close range.

Watford’s Francisco Sierralta talks to referee Lewis Smith at full-time. Photograph: Rhianna Chadwick/PA

Mark Sykes struck a superb equaliser to earn a Bristol City team who finished with nine men a 1-1 draw at Oxford in Liam Manning’s first return to the Kassam Stadium.

The former Oxford midfielder finished a brilliantly worked free-kick with a 20-yard shot into the top corner from Max Bird’s pass. The draw is a morale boost to the Robins’ playoff hopes because they had to play for more than an hour with 10 men after Joe Williams was shown a straight red in the 31st minute for a bad foul on Will Vaulks. Ross McCrorie was then dismissed in the 86th minute for a second yellow card when he fouled Ciaron Brown.

Greg Leigh put Oxford in front in the 59th minute with a first-time cross-shot from wide on the left which may have taken a slight deflection off the defender Rob Dickie. Sykes equalised six minutes later with a move that appeared to be straight off the training ground. The point extends Oxford unbeaten run in the Championship under Gary Rowett to nine, but this was the first home game not to produce all three points for him after four successive wins.

• This roundup will be updated later