Sam Dalby marked his return from injury with an injury-time winner as the club's Under-23 side twice came from behind to beat Swansea City in a Professional Development League game on Monday afternoon.

The 20-year-old has not played a competitive minute this season following a toe operation and has missed 10 league games. The plan was to slowly integrate the former Leeds United and Leyton Orient forward back into action, but coach Omer Riza sent for him from the bench with the game locked at 1-1 just past the hour, with Joseph Hungbo having cancelled out an 11th-minute opener by the home side.

Swansea, who featured four players in and around the first team, took the lead again on 72 minutes, but left-back Toby Stevenson scored an equaliser with 11 minutes to go and then Dalby cracked in a free-kick in the fifth minute of added time.

"I'm delighted for Sam," said Riza. "He holds the ball up well, brings people into play and he scores goals. He's worked really hard to get back fit and come back sooner than we thought, which is a credit to him, the medical staff, the physios and the sports science team. It's obviously never great to have a toe operation as a footballer and it's been a tough period for him, but he's come back strong and now we hope he can kick on."

Riza, 41, also hopes the team can carry on after Christmas where they left off. This was their second win in five games and the second time they have shown resilience to come from behind and win 3-2.

"It's been a tough start to the season, like it has for everyone with Covid and players being unavailable," he said. "We've picked up the performance levels over the last month now we have been able to select a more consistent team. The boys have also shown great versatility with the changing of systems and it's nice for them to get their reward with a win. It's a nice three points and hopefully we can keep these levels going, in terms of performances and results, in the new year."