B’mouth 1 – 1 Sunderland

Evanilson came off the bench to cancel out Eliezer Mayenda’s opener to rescue a Bournemouth point in a 1-1 draw at the Vitality Stadium as Sunderland’s run of games without a league win extends to four.

Mayenda had given his side a deserved first-half lead, tapping home after Petrovic spilt a venomous Habib Diarra strike into his path.

However, keen to maintain Bournemouth’s run without defeat, that now stretches to eight games, Evanilson bundled in the equaliser in the second half, set up by a super Marcus Tavernier cross in the second half.

Buoyed into the opener after welcoming Granit Xhaka back into the team after seven matches out with injury, in retrospect, Sunderland will feel hard done by after being denied a penalty early on.

With just three minutes on the clock, Alex Jimenez’s clumsy challenge on Enzo Le Fee in the area was waved away by Jarred Gillett. VAR stuck with the on-field decision, deeming the tackle “normal contact”.

Sunderland, who also had eyes on earning their first win on the road since October, nearly found a second but a super Petrovic save denied Diarra one-on-one.

However, minutes later, Evanilson, who replaced David Brooks during the half-time interval, scored to deny Sunderland the chance to leapfrog the Cherries.

Instead, Sunderland stay eighth while Bournemouth stay 11th. However, after this round of fixtures concludes, with games around them, ournemouth could drop to 11th while Sunderland could end up in 13th.

More to follow…

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