Callum Wilson double earns Newcastle United victory over Everton

Former Bournemouth striker takes his tally for season to six as Merseysiders lose second game in a row despite Calvert-Lewin's eighth league goal of campaign

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Callum Wilson's double dashed Everton's hopes of returning to the top of the Premier League table as England keeper Jordan Pickford watched from the bench.

Pickford was rested by manager Carlo Ancelotti after a turbulent few weeks, but replacement Robin Olsen could not keep out Wilson's 56th-minute penalty and his late second to prevent a much-changed Toffees' side from slipping to a 2-1 defeat at St James' Park.

His absence was the major talking point on an afternoon when the visitors, blunted without the injured James Rodriguez and the suspended Richarlison, rarely looked like bouncing back from their first reverse of the campaign at Southampton despite Dominic Calvert-Lewin's late goal.

Newcastle manager Steve Bruce had bristled at suggestions that his team was boring in the run-up to the game, and they were little more than functional, if marginally the better team on the day.

"We knew it would be a battle against one of the great managers," he said at the end of a hard-fought victory. "He has had a few problems with injuries but I couldn't be more pleased. We deserved it.

"When you play a good team tactically you have to be right. It wasn't much of a spectacle in the first half but once we got the goal ... all in all it is a good day's work for us."

Having revealed before kick-off that he had taken Pickford out of the firing line, but that he would return against Manchester United next weekend, Ancelotti put his faith in Sweden international Olsen and he, like opposite number Karl Darlow, enjoyed a quiet start to his afternoon.

Andre Gomes was doing his best to link with in-form striker Calvert-Lewin, but to no telling effect while Allan Saint-Maximin and Miguel Almiron were making little progress going the other way.

However, it was the Paraguay international who unlocked the door 14 minutes before the break after Darlow had punched away Gylfi Sigurdsson's corner, racing away to feed Wilson, whose inch-perfect pass to Saint-Maximin deserved a better reward than the save Olsen made as he raced from his line.

Calvert-Lewin, who had seen a 44th-minute drive blocked by Federico Fernandez, needed treatment minutes into the second half after a clash of heads with Fabian Schar as he headed a Jonjoe Kenny cross dangerously back across goal.

With wing-backs Jacob Murphy and Jamal Lewis far more prominent, the Magpies were playing considerably higher up the pitch, and they got their reward within 11 minutes of the restart after Gomes had fouled Wilson as he attempted to clear Sean Longstaff's near-post corner.

The striker stepped up to send Olsen the wrong way from the spot, but it would have been 2-0 within two minutes had the Swede not produced a fine reaction save to turn over Longstaff's close-range strike.

The game opened up as the Toffees pressed for an equaliser, and the Magpies looked to have wrapped it up six minutes from time when substitute Ryan Fraser surged into space on the left and crossed for Wilson to score at the far post.

However, Calvert-Lewin's injury-time strike – his 12th of the season in all competitions – made for a tense conclusion during which a back-pedalling Darlow had to tip Bernard's looping effort over.

"Some quality was missing, some speed and attention," said Ancelotti after the match. "The game was imbalanced. We wanted to wait for the opportunity. But they got the penalty from a lack of concentration. That made it a lot more difficult.

"They are important players missing. When you don't have these players you have to play differently, maybe with less quality but with more focus. The goals we conceded, we lacked focus."