Vito Mannone - 3

Vito hasn't had a great time of late and tonight just compounded things. Could have done better with the first goal. The second. Oh dear. Something strangely poetic about it really. When we were last in Manchester, a goalkeeper spilling a shot in a similar way ignited out season. Tonight it may have completely extinguished it.

Santiago Vergini- 7

Best game in a Sunderland shirt. Looks more a right back than a centre back on this showing. Defended sensibly and showed quality on the ball. A strong improvement.

Marcos Alonso - 6

Solid enough at times, sluggish at others. Gets beaten on the outside too easily, far too often though.

Wes Brown - 6

Wes was solid, but can be far too casual at times. Particularly when recovering from errors.

John O'Shea - 5

Defended well enough I thought. Gets a low score for his key misses. That first chance was golden, jewel encrusted. The second miss was poor for a player of his experience too. Ultimately, mistakes and misses cost you points. He missed two.

Lee Cattermole - 4

Kept going and offering for the ball, but was sloppy tonight. Once again the same familiar error comes back to haunt the team and costs us a goal. We keep saying if only he could eradicate these errors, but the regularity of them is staggering.

Jack Colback - 7

A busy performance. Again though, he needs to be more positive on the ball. His pressing and work rate were very good tonight though.

Sebastian Larsson - 6

Effective in the first half in a similar vein to Colback. Good delivery too. Struggled to get into the game second half, though.

Adam Johnson - 8

A constant threat. Really troubled the City back line with and without the ball. Some decent delivery from dead balls too.

Fabio Borini - 6

Fabio has gone slightly off the boil recently. His decision making has deteriorated and he seems to be more wasteful in good situations than during his purple patch. I expect a little more from him, to be honest.

Connor Wickham - 10

Aye.

Nacho Scocco - 6.5

He gets a relatively high score because of his impact. Quietly effective, look confident. Involved in the excellent equaliser, most importantly.

Emanuele Giaccherini - 7

The Italian did that thing where he was really good for twenty minutes. Two assists. Showed his quality. Please can see some more, Giacchy?

Man of the Match: Connor Wickham

If anyone listens to the Wise Men Say podcast, they'll know I'm not Connor's biggest fan. Well, credit to him tonight. After a good performance at the weekend, he capped it off with arguably the complete centre forward's performance. Great hold up play, confident, scoring goals. Well done to him. He was even 'creatine' chances (see what I did there) from his long throws. But aye. Have a raw steak and a protein shake on me, lad. You fully deserve it. More of the same on Saturday please.