Newcastle United star admits what Wolves player said about penalty as Anthony Taylor demoted to Championship

Newcastle United star Callum Wilson has opened up on what one Wolverhampton Wanderers defender said to him in the long wait for VAR to approve a penalty last weekend.

The Magpies took the lead for the second time in the Premier League fixture on the stroke of halftime from a spot kick but there was controversy over the penalty being given. Wolves forward Hwang Hee-chan appeared to have taken out Fabian Schar in the penalty box and Anthony Taylor deemed the contact enough for a foul.

However, replays on VAR appeared to show that Hwang had withdrawn from the challenge just before contact but the on-field decision was ruled not to be a clear and obvious error. That decision vexed Wolves boss Gary O'Neil after the 2-2 draw and this weekend referee Taylor will oversee a Championship match just seven days after the controversy.

All the VAR faff meant that Newcastle United penalty taker Callum Wilson had to endure a long wait to stick the ball in the back of the net. The Magpies man admitted that wait can be tricky for players to deal with.

Speaking on the BBC Sounds' Footballers' Football Podcast, he said: "While that was going on I took myself away and it felt like an eternity from the minute the whistle blew to getting the ball on the spot. It must have been five minutes.

"In a stadium where there's all jeers and players are trying to talk to me. One of the centre-backs came up to me and asked if I thought it was a penalty, just having a conversation to be fair, he wasn't saying too much but I was like, 'big man don't talk to me, I'm worlds away'.

"He was looking at me because Bruno [Guimaraes] was on the spot so he mustn't have been thinking what I was doing there. I had to take myself away, get myself in the zone and get focused."

Wilson didn't divulge whether the centre-back in question was Max Kilman or Craig Dawson but did accept that Newcastle United were perhaps lucky with the penalty decision.

He said: "I'm not going to be biased and say yes or no. In real time I thought penalty but when you slow the replays down then it starts to look more like it's not a penalty.

"Obviously the referee didn't have the beauty of that but VAR is in play to help him. Is it a clear and obvious mistake by the referee's point of view? There was slight contact made when you slow it down but some angles look like he kicked him, some angles it didn't. You've got to back the referee and get the game moving again."