Sunderland vs Crystal Palace match report: Fabio Borini rescues point after ex-striker Connor Wickham scores twice

Sunderland 2 Crystal Palace 2

(Getty Images)

There will be more of this most likely – stunning equalisers in the final seconds of normal time, stunning goals from disliked former heroes.

For Sunderland, the season usually starts around now. Their support knows what the mill looks like. It is where they go through for the final two months of every season.Last night they looked like a defeated side after Connor Wickham struck twice midway through the second half.

He was the man who kept Sunderland up two years ago. But earlier this season he said he was a million times happier at Palace than at the Stadium of Light. That ensured there was no welcome return. He was jeered throughout and when Scott Dann needlessly deflected a long range Dame N’Doye shot in the first half into his own goal, you could not see it being his, or his side’s day.

Former Sunderland striker Connor Wickham scored twice against his former club (Getty Images)

Then came two goals of true quality, midway through the second half. It looked like Wickham had silenced a city.Instead, Fabio Borini, who was also influential in the great escape of 2014, came off the substitutes’ bench and from nowhere, and in a seemingly harmless position, smashed a right footed shot into the far corner of Wayne Hennessey’s goal.

Alan Pardew could not believe it. Nor could his Palace players, who have now not won in any of their last 11 league games. They must now keep a nervous eye on a side they thought they had beaten.

Pardew’s side could so easily have taken the lead in a first half littered with opportunities. None were better than the one created from the left-wing corner hoisted over by Yohan Cabaye just past the half-hour mark.

Jan Kirchhoff and Lamine Koné lost Scott Dann, but in perhaps typical form for Palace, even when he got it right, glancing his header goalwards, Vito Mannone, at full stretch, produced a superb save to his left.

There were opportunities for both goalkeepers to shine. Mannone stood up well to an early shot from Wilfried Zaha. Damien Delaney saw an angled shot saved by the Italian goalkeeper, again from a dead ball from Cabaye and in the 20th minute, Jordon Mutch should really have done better after a fine layoff from Yannick Bolasie.

They would prove costly misses. Hennessey had dealt with a long range effort from Jack Rodwell and watched N’Doye shot over his crossbar before the opening goal came.Sunderland grasped their good fortune when N’Doye’s shot took its huge deflection off Dann and left Hennessey stranded.

There could have been a second before the break. Defoe was denied by a smart save and in first-half injury time Younes Kaboul, on for the injured John O’Shea, volleyed over the visitors’ crossbar from six yards out.

By the 67th minute, Wickham had struck in devastating fashion with two goals in a six-minute spell that turned the game on its head.Nothing had happened in the second half until the 62nd minute, when Bolasie dinked a short ball inside the penalty area to his centre forward. Wickham had his back to goal, but with his left foot he took the pass and on the turn, and with his next touch, he smashed a right-footed shot that cannoned into Mannone’s goal off the near upright.

That deflated the home side. Within six minutes Wickham had produced an even more powerful finish to send his side in front. Mutch floated over a corner and in a crowd of bodies, it looked like the Palace captain Mile Jedinak had done enough to nod the ball into the Sunderland six-yard box. The first time finish from Wickham that followed, a left-foot volley, was stunning in its accuracy and its power and it flew past Mannone.