In amongst the flurry of activity on the first day of pre-season training came the expected news that Newcastle’s No. 9, Callum Wilson, was leaving the club after five seasons.
Wilson finishes his Newcastle career as the third top Premier League goal scorer in the club’s history with 47 goals from 113 appearances. He scored twice in cup competitions taking his overall total to 49 goals in 130 appearances. This is a more than respectable record for a player who only averaged 26 games per season due to the persistent injuries that sadly held him back from becoming the player he could have been.
Wilson’s injuries were well documented and varied. His body ultimately let him down, but the strength of character he showed to come back from two cruciate ligament tears in 2015 and 2017 when playing for Bournemouth should never be underestimated.
Anybody who listened to Wilson on the High-Performance podcast in May 2025 will not be surprised that he had the mental fortitude to come back from those bad injuries. He had a challenging childhood growing up in Coventry and had to handle significant adversity. It’s a credit to his levels of self-belief and work ethic that he has played football at the highest level for so long, including his 9 caps (two goals) for England, and his injuries shouldn’t be allowed to define him.
Newcastle parted with £20m to sign Wilson from Bournemouth in the post-Covid summer of 2020 during one of the rare and fleeting periods of enthusiasm that enabled Mike Ashley to loosen the purse strings.
Newcastle United sign Callum Wilson - Newcastle United
It was a move that Steve Bruce pushed for, and he was repaid with eight goals in just twelve league appearances before Christmas, including a debut strike at West Ham. Along with Allan Saint-Maximin, Wilson was a rare cause for celebration and joy in those dreary days under Steve Bruce. However, only four goals followed for the rest of 2020/21 (braces in away wins at Everton and Leicester), as the team struggled for consistency and a hamstring issue sidelined Wilson for almost half the remaining fixtures.
Wilson took the No. 9 shirt from a clearly burdened Joelinton for the 2021/22 season and again started with an opening day goal against West Ham (this time in a 4-2 home defeat). By the time he recovered from a hamstring injury sustained in September the takeover had happened, and the Newcastle United world was a different place.
Of the eight goals Wilson scored in 2021/22 (he missed four months from January to May with a calf injury), his strike against Burnley was arguably his most important goal for Newcastle. It was Eddie Howe’s first win as manager and was critically important in the relegation battle. Wilson was at his very best that night and put in a classic all round centre-forward performance which brought to mind Newcastle number 9s of old.
2022/23 was Wilson’s best season in the black and white. The six goals he scored before the mid-season World Cup break in November propelled him into the England squad for the tournament, and he appeared in 31 league games that season. He saved his best form for April, when he and Alexander Isak competed for the starting spot and spurred each other on to hit previously unseen heights.
Wilson scored eight times in seven appearances (only two starts) in April then grabbed another three goals in May to fire Newcastle into the Champions League. His 89th minute strike at the Gallowgate to put Newcastle 3-1 up against Brighton and all but confirm Champions League qualification will live long in the memory, and it is this period that Wilson will be remembered most fondly for. He finished the season with 18 league goals.
There is an argument (mostly with the benefit of hindsight) that the summer of 2023 would have been an opportune time to cash in on Wilson while his stock was high.
This, however, ignores the context that Newcastle were about to embark on a gruelling campaign on four fronts and it still wasn’t clear just how good Alexander Isak was going to be. Wilson scored seven goals in nine league appearances before the end of October before succumbing to calf and chest injuries for the majority of the rest of the season. He ended the season with ten goals from twenty-six appearances in all competitions.
Last season was undoubtedly a disappointment for Wilson, albeit he rounded off his time at the Magpies by playing the last 15 minutes of the Carabao Cup Final win. His only goal came in the FA Cup at Birmingham City, and when he was fully fit from February onwards, he couldn’t usurp Isak in the starting XI.
One thing Callum Wilson will never lack is self-belief, even if some of his bravado may be a coping strategy for some of the hardships he has experienced in his life. The Newcastle United number 9 has to have certain personal characteristics as well as knowing where the back of the net is.
Wilson had the charisma and confidence as well as the ability to do that shirt proud, and he will always be respected and remembered fondly on Tyneside for his achievements.
Callum Wilson. Goalscorer.
Thank you for the memories, CW9 🫡 pic.twitter.com/f19Qgu1Jlw
— Newcastle United (@NUFC) July 7, 2025