Shola was thrown on in the late stages of the game and did more in the match than Cisse had done in the previous 72 minutes, winning a penalty and scoring that important equaliser.
Alan Pardew: “I'm proud of him and he can be proud of himself.
“It wasn't an easy finish by the way.
“He had to make sure he got a good connection and there wasn't much to aim at.
“Best we've played for a long while. Forget about the sending-off, even before that, we had 15 or 20 minutes where we were brilliant, and I knew something was going to give.
“Demba's contribution second half was more like it, that's the best he's been since coming back from Africa.
“His link-up play and some of the things he was doing in the box were excellent.”