The Magpies looked to be heading for a deserved victory courtesy of Kevin Nolan's 52nd-minute strike when the Black Cats' record signing Asamoah Gyan bundled home an injury-time equaliser to spare his side's blushes. Pardew was delighted with the way a side deprived of key men Andy Carroll, Cheik Tiote and Steven Taylor took the game to their hosts and came agonisingly close to a third successive Premier League victory. He said: "Sunderland are having a great season and you have got to remember that. "We are really disappointed today because we know our performance and some of our play deserved to win today. "We will take that and it will arm us for next week when we have got a tough game [against Tottenham]." Gyan's equaliser could hardly have been better timed with the game having reached the fourth of five minutes of stoppage time. The Ghana international was in the right place at the right time when keeper Steve Harper parried Phil Bardsley's shot against him and the ball looped into the empty net. It may have been harsh on the Magpies, who had dominated the game from the minute Nolan cleverly backed-heeled his 10th goal of the season and his fourth against the Black Cats seven minutes after the restart. Sunderland's £23million strike-force of Gyan and Darren Bent were largely contained by Fabricio Coloccini and Mike Williamson, and Newcastle left Wearside kicking themselves after holding out for all but the final few seconds. There were ugly scenes after the equaliser when a fan confronted Harper on the pitch, and after the final whistle with rivals supporters hurling seats at each other as things momentarily got out of hand. Pardew was left to bemoan the five minutes of injury time signalled by referee Howard Webb. He said: "The fourth official came up to me earlier and said, 'We have had a lot of injuries, a lot of waiting time, there is going to be time', so his information was good. "But I still felt that five minutes - you don't see many games where you get five minutes at the end, and I felt it was a bit harsh, if I am honest. I thought there would be three or four minutes. "It boosted the crowd. When you get a figure like five or six, the stadium came alive again. "We had killed the stadium and the ref almost said, 'Here you are, there's a little bit of time towards the end for you', as it proved to be, unfortunately." Opposite number Steve Bruce understandably disagreed with Pardew on the amount of stoppage time, but admitted his side had got out of jail as they denied Newcastle a second victory following their 5-1 romp earlier in the season. He said: "I think it should have been eight or nine or 10, to be honest. Every time Joey Barton got the ball - and I thought Joey Barton played very well - it was like leading the orchestra, wasn't it? "I took him a minute to get a free-kick, a minute to take it. He was down five times - I have never seen him down so much in my life, but there you go. "The one thing you can't complain about with the team we have here is they never give up. "Even though we weren't playing well, at the death with a minute to go, we had six or seven people in the box trying to score a goal, so we never gave it up. "We got a bit of the bounce of the ball, but Phil was in the 18-yard box and we got that little bit of luck, which got us a point."
