The law of averages suggested scoring a late goal for the fourth time in as many matches should be beyond Reading, but not so. Having put his side ahead with a fine strike after seven minutes, only five minutes remained when Jimmy Kébé rose at the far post to earn the Royals a vital three points with a header direct from a free-kick.

The result means Reading have taken 14 points from their past seven games, a far cry from their pre-Christmas form, which had them losing six matches in a row and prompted Kébé to suggest they looked no more than a decent Championship side. His point was that Anton Zingarevich, needed to spend to keep them up, but while the Russian owner has allowed Brian McDermott to be busy during the transfer window, it may be his decision to keep faith with his manager that will be more important.

"We've been on a really steep learning curve but we are finding ways to win games now," said McDermott, who again left leading his goalscorer, Adam Le Fondre, on the bench, despite his impressive recent record, and was again vindicated by the result.

"We played some good stuff against a really good team. It's very hard to pick the team and leave people out. 'Alfie' [Le Fondre] is the best example of that, but he came on and made a difference."

Up to a point, perhaps. In fact it was Nick Blackman, the new forward signing from Sheffield United, who won the late free-kick, and the former Leeds and Carlisle full-back Ian Harte, who swung it on to Kébé's head.

"Harte's set pieces have been excellent – but we've been saying that for the past 20 years," said a smiling McDermott.

The merits of McDermott's decision not to start Le Fondre – scorer of the two late goals that secured a point at home to Chelsea on Wednesday – were probably still being debated when his side took the lead. Garath McCleary had played the ball down the left for his captain, Jobi McAnuff, to cut the ball back across the penalty area. A clever first touch allowed Kébé to both bring the ball under control and wrong-foot the Sunderland defenders, buying himself time to look up and, from close to the penalty spot, stroke the ball high beyond the Sunderland goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.

Sunderland came back strongly. Adam Federici had to pull off a double save when his diving effort to keep out Alfred N'Diaye's low shot rebounded to Sebastian Larsson. But the Reading goalkeeper could do nothing soon afterwards, when Pavel Pogrebnyak, back defending a corner, caught John O'Shea with a needless forward's tackle in his own penalty area. Craig Gardner struck the spot-kick crisply to Federici's right to equalise.

The visitors had Mignolet to thank for not going into the break behind, though. Ian Harte's deep free-kick, swung in from the right with his left foot, saw Pogrebnyak rise on the six-yard line, but the Sunderland goalkeeper reacted smartly to push the Russian's glancing header away.

McDermott sent on Le Fondre, but Martin O'Neill could respond by bringing on the former Swansea centre-forward Danny Graham, who nearly marked his debut with a goal when his close-range header was saved by Federici. N'Diaye, too, missed a great chance, and it was Kébé who had the final word.

"I'm disappointed we conceded an unnecessary free-kick, and we paid the penalty," O'Neill said. "We had just had a couple of really good chances ourselves, too. I certainly didn't think we were going to lose it. In the second half I thought we were in reasonable control."