The 18-year-old, who joined the Black Cats in an £8million deal from Ipswich in the summer, had already earned rave reviews for his display in his top-flight debut as a substitute at Bolton last weekend. And he underlined his potential against Aston Villa at the Stadium of Light on Saturday with a powerful left-foot strike past Shay Given in the 38th minute as his side twice battled back from behind to grab a share of the points in a high-tempo clash. Bruce said: "It's a great strike with his left foot - his wrong foot - and it will do him the world of good. There's not many people who score goals in the Premier League at 18 years old. "I think you can really see his potential and he can only get better. He was playing against two really, really good centre-backs today in James Collins and Richard Dunne, and for me he did very, very well." However Wickham's goal was not the pick of an action-packed afternoon, with Villa midfielder Stiliyan Petrov taking that honour with a magnificent long-range drive to put his side ahead in the 20th minute. Petrov's finish belied the fact that it was only his sixth goal in 167 appearances for Villa, and boss Alex McLeish admitted he was a little surprised the Bulgarian has not got on the scoresheet more often. McLeish said: "Stiliyan scored a lot of goals with Celtic but he was more of an attacking midfielder. He has had to modify his game a little bit and has been used in a different way. "He's a great striker of the ball and he's also pretty accurate from distance, so if we can get him in those positions more often we should see him scoring more of those kinds of goals." Both managers accepted a draw was a fair result with Sunderland continuing the revival they had begun at the Reebok Stadium and Villa snapping a run of two straight league defeats. From before kick-off the atmosphere was given a fractious feel by the return of Darren Bent for the first time since his controversial move south in January, but the striker was a passenger for much of the first period. It was late that the game really exploded into life, with the excellent Sebastian Larsson bringing a save out of Shay Given then Bent wriggling clear at the other end only to be judged to have fouled Wes Brown in the process. Bent was denied the chance to put Villa back in front on 70 minutes when he was put clear by Gabriel Agbonlahor but drilled his shot straight at Kieran Westwood, a replacement for Simon Mignolet who suffered a badly broken nose. "Westy has been waiting patiently and has trained fantastically well," said Bruce of his substitute keeper. "All the hard work he's done has paid off because it was sod's law that it [a Bent goal] was going to make the headlines." Villa did manage to snatch back the lead with six minutes left when Dunne rose highest to head home a Petrov corner - but there was still time for Stephane Sessegnon to nod an 89th-minute leveller from another Larsson free-kick. McLeish said: "It's frustrating having taken the lead so late in the game. It is two points lost but there's nothing we can do about it now. "We can't get them back and we have to look ahead to the next game."
