Sunderland 2 - 2 C PalaceSunderland’s Fabio Borini strikes late to deny Crystal Palace victory
Home team scorersDame N'Doye 36
Fabio Borini 90
Away team scorersConnor Wickham 61
Connor Wickham 67
Connor Wickham reminded Sunderland of what might have been by nudging his former employers a step closer to relegation. The centre forward’s undoubted promise may have been largely unfulfilled during a somewhat underwhelming few years on Wearside, but his two expertly taken second-half goals ensured Sam Allardyce’s side were left to seek consolation from Fabio Borini’s extraordinary 90th-minute equaliser.
If a point is better than nothing, it will be unlikely to placate either Allardyce –who had regarded victory as imperative – or Alan Pardew, whose once high‑flying side have now gone 11 Premier League games without a win.
Wilfried Zaha began as if on a personal mission to prove that Palace’s long winless run had placed them in a false position. An early dummy-suffused dribble carried Zaha beyond a cluster of defenders only for his eventual shot to take a deflection and trickle tamely towards Vito Mannone’s out-stretched arms.
It is no coincidence that the visitors’ tumble down the table has coincided with Yannick Bolasie’s injury-induced absence but Bolasie was back wide on the left in Pardew’s 4-2-3-1 starting formation.
Despite not seeming entirely match fit, he did not take long to make his presence felt. Having dodged DeAndre Yedlin with consummate ease, Bolasie whipped in a low cross which would surely have prefaced a goal had a team-mate only been sufficiently advanced to connect with it.
If the winger’s presence dictated Sunderland could never really relax, Yohan Cabaye’s promptings from central midfield also seemed to be having a disruptive effect on Allardyce’s players.
Unwilling to be upstaged, Wahbi Khazri did attempt to change the early narrative by worrying the right side of Pardew’s defence and saw one shot deflected inches wide, while also wasting a couple of other inviting openings to create havoc.
Sunderland were short of creativity and incision where it mattered. When Wayne Hennessey was forced into a rare save from Jack Rodwell it seemed thoroughly emblematic that the midfielder – preferred to the benched Lee Cattermole –shot straight at the visiting goalkeeper’s throat.
Shortly afterwards Rodwell was booked for a cynical foul which sent the counter-attacking Zaha sprawling before precipitating a mini shoving melee in which the offender was surrounded by a posse of indignant Palace players. If his subsequent need to watch his step represented a minor blow to Allardyce, another swiftly followed when the home captain, John O’Shea, hobbled off to be replaced by the newly fit again Younès Kaboul.
Palace sensed opportunity and when Scott Dann met Cabaye’s corner it took a fabulous fingertip save from Mannone to defy the usual laws of physics and somehow divert the defender’s header from six yards to safety. Moments later Dann looked inconsolable after Dame N’Doye drifted inside from his right-wing beat, met Jermain Defoe’s pass and, from around 25 yards, out unleashed an apparently benign shot which took a hefty deflection off the centre-half’s boot before looping beyond the wrong-footed Hennessey.
Half-time beckoned but there remained time for Dann to receive a yellow card for fouling Patrick van Aanholt and for Kaboul with his head in his hands after heading Khazri’s free-kick over the bar from close range.
Evidently on a high after scoring – albeit with more than a little help from Dann – his first goal for Sunderland since arriving on loan from Trabzonsporin January, N’Doye emerged for the second half wreathed in smiles. With three of his six Premier League goals having come against Palace – the other two were for Hull – the forward clearly likes playing the south Londoners.
Dann will harbour contrasting emotions about Sunderland. Coincidentally, it had been his extraordinary, uncharacteristic slip which had gifted Defoe the Wearsiders’ winner in a 1-0 away League victory at Selhurst Park last November.
Back then all the talk was of Palace gate-crashing football’s European party and Pardew quite possibly succeeding Roy Hodgson as England manager. Four months on the Championship rather than the Champions League is preying on the minds of south Londoners.
Several of Pardew’s team looked distinctly, and increasingly, fed up. Or at least they did until Connor Wickham jogged the memories of his former public with two swift goals. The centre forward – less than prolific during his days on this patch – has been little lamented since his £9m move to Palace last summer but here Wickham suddenly sprang to life, demonstrating precisely why Pardew paid so much for him.
First Zaha and Bolasie combined smartly to undo Kaboul and company before Wickham unleashed a superb shot which, aided by a slight deflection off Yedlin, flew beyond Mannone.
The silenced home crowd had merely witnessed the warm up act. Wickham’s next party trick saw him extend his left foot and volley his side’s second goal after Cabaye’s corner and Dann’s headed flick sent the ball bouncing into his path.
By the 90th minute Pardew looked poised to celebrate when, out of nothing, Borini – only playing when an eye injury forced substitute Lee Cattermole to be replaced – unleashed an apparently unfeasible shot from the most awkward of angles.
As it flew past Hennessey, hope flickered, faintly and tantalisingly, on Sunderland’s horizon.
Guardian
