Premier League: Sunderland 1 Newcastle United 1

Asamoah Gyan rescued a point for Sunderland with the latest and luckiest of equalisers in a 1-1 draw with Newcastle in the Wear-Tyne derby on Sunday.

Three minutes into injury-time, Jordan Henderson ushered the ball out to Phil Bardsley on the right wing and his fierce shot was spilled by Steve Harper into the on-rushing Gyan.

The club’s record signing knew nothing about it as the ball slammed into him, rolled up his chest and looped over the keeper and just under the bar.

The Stadium of Light exploded in relief and disbelief as the realisation dawned that somehow Sunderland had escaped with a point.

The warning bells for the home team were there as early as the third minute when the flag stayed out down on Joey Barton’s long ball and Shola Ameobi was left with only Craig Gordon to beat but steered his shot wide of the post from 15 yards.

Sunderland replied through Darren Bent who got his own one-on-one in the seventh minute but drove his shot straight at Harper.

In a scrappy first half, Newcastle were poor but Sunderland contrived to be worse.

The home team looked as though they might get some momentum going after the quarter-hour – Malbranque’s low shot from the edge of the area was goalbound but Harper did brilliantly to dive to his bottom right-hand corner and fingertip the ball clear.

Then Ahmed Elmohamady showed great technique to get an awkwardly bouncing ball on target but his well-struck shot took a deflection and flashed wide.

Sunderland failed to capitalise on that good spell though and Newcastle could easily have gone into the break ahead when Ameobi was allowed a free header from a Barton corner but put it inches over the bar.

Sunderland tried to up their game in the second half but there was little improvement and Newcastle took the lead in the 52nd minute with a goal every bit as scrappy as the game itself.

Barton put a corner in from the right and for the umpteenth time Ameobi outjumped the Sunderland defence and his header goalwards was turned over the line by Kevin Nolan.

It was a kick in the teeth for Sunderland fans made worse by their team’s failure to respond in the minutes afterwards – striker Leon Best might even have doubled Newcastle’s lead had he been able to reach Barton’s cross from the left just a minute after the Tynesiders had opened the scoring.

Sunderland simply failed to perform to their normal standards and mustered only two efforts on Harper’s goal of note – Bent lobbing wide just before Nolan’s goal and Richardson failing to turn a mis-hit Elmohamady shot on target in the 65th minute.

The atmosphere had turned poisonous in the closing stages as Sunderland continued to play abysmally and it seemed certain the Magpies would do the double over their bitter rivals.

But Gyan was in the right place at the right time as Sunderland shared the spoils.