Newcastle United celebrated their first Premier League win in 10 games and lifted some pressure off manager Steve Bruce after two goals from Callum Wilson gave them a 2-0 win at Everton on Saturday.
The 16th-placed Magpies put some distance between themselves and the bottom three after Wilson scored his 50th and 51st Premier League goals, leaving them on 22 points from 21 games.
The result left them nine points above 18th-placed Fulham who have two games in hand and the performance will have been a confidence boost for Bruce, who came under intense scrutiny during the barren run.
Everton stayed seventh on 33 points from 19 games after a flat performance, as Wilson missed two chances before he fired the visitors ahead with a brilliiant header in the 73rd minute.
The striker was delighted with Newcastle's sound performance although he rued not scoring more goals against a lethargic looking Everton who lacked bite and creativity.
"I think it’s been a long time coming," Wilson told BT Sport. "We needed to pull our fingers out, to be honest. We’ve shown glimpses, but today everything came together.
"I got a brace today, but I'm disappointed I didn’t get a hat-trick. I missed a couple of chances. I should have had three for sure. It was nice today to go out and get a performance for the manager and the fans."
"We have to take the game to teams. We can’t be sitting back all the time, especially with the players we’ve got. The players are the ones who go out and perform at the end of the day."
Pickford kept out a glancing header by Wilson with a superb reflex save in the 30th minute and the Newcastle striker dragged a sitter wide in the 53rd before he headed in Jonjo Shelvey's corner from 10 metres.
With playmaker Gylfi Sigurdsson failing to pull the strings in midfield in his 300th Premier League appearance, Everton struggled to turn their late pressure into chances against a well organised Newcastle defence.
Having seen his deflected shot from a tight angle come off the outside of the post in the 87th minute, Wilson put the icing on the cake in stoppage time as he buried buried a clinical finish past Pickford thanks to a fine Jamal Lewis assist.
(Writing by Zoran Milosavljevic; Editing by Frances Kerry and Angus MacSwan)
