Wilson: Win should help silence critics
CALLUM Wilson insists he is just getting started at Newcastle United after the striker helped put ‘any outside noise to bed a little bit’ against Crystal Palace.
The Magpies’ main man broke the deadlock at Selhurst Park in the 88th-minute after coolly poking the ball through goalkeeper Vicente Guaita’s legs.
Wilson then turned provider and set up Joelinton just 99 seconds later as Newcastle returned to winning ways with a 2-0 victory at Selhurst Park.
Wilson has been directly involved in threequarters of Newcastle’s Premier League goals this season and the 28-year-old has already proved an inspired signing.
To put Wilson’s impressive start into perspective, the striker has scored seven league goals for the Magpies, which is one more than last season’s top scorer Jonjo Shelvey managed in 2019-20.
He said: “That is only the start. I want to keep scoring as many goals as possible.
“I think it is fair to say the lads probably were not happy with the top scorer being six goals last year.
“I think I only had eight myself last year so it was an unsuccessful season probably from both fronts in front of goal.
“I have come up here to change that and help the other lads get some goals as well.
“Hence, Joey got on the scoresheet from one of my assists. It is nice.”
Newcastle moved up to 13th following the win at Palace and the Magpies have now claimed 14 points from their opening 10 league games.
After what happened against Southampton and Chelsea earlier this month, United put in a muchimproved performance and Wilson admits you have to have ‘big shoulders to take on any criticism’.
He added: “I think it puts any outside noise to bed a little bit,.
“Questions are asked when we suffer two back-to-back defeats and rightly so. This is the Premier League.
“It is such a big club and everyone wants success - no more so than the players.
“We don’t like to get beat week in, week out and it was important to get back to winning ways.
“We did that in style. I think the goals were good goals.
“We opened them up well and the guys at the back defended for their lives and it is our first clean sheet in a while so it is definitely something to build on with a good run of games coming up.”
Wilson believes his partnership with Joelinton was a ‘little bit closer’ in the second half of Newcastle United’s victory against Palace.
Joelinton set up Wilson’s opener at Selhurst Park in the 88th minute and, 99 seconds later, Wilson returned the favour for his strike partner, who doubled Newcastle’s advantage.
Wilson was keen not to disrupt the dressing room after completing his £20m move from Bournemouth last summer and Steve Bruce feared stripping Joelinton of the No 9 shirt ‘might have been too much of a kicking’.
Instead, the Newcastle head coach believed Wilson and Joelinton could complement each other and this was another encouraging display from the pair after their previous outing together against Burnley last month.
Wilson has been passing on little pointers to Joelinton in training and, perhaps, it would be a surprise if the Magpies’ new-look strikeforce did not line up again at Aston Villa on Friday night.
Wilson said “I think Joe is a little bit younger than me and probably I have a little more experience than him in this league.
“I think the most important thing for me when we play as a two up front is to help each other out and try and complement each other.
“Sometimes, when you are up there on your own you can feel a bit isolated and it is a little bit more difficult.
“You are fighting two centrehalves on your own.
“I think at Palace we battled well together and played closer together in the second half. Hence we got the goals and the assists for each other.”