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Dwight Gayle took his tally to 19 for the season with a double against Forest

Dwight Gayle scored twice as Newcastle United went top of the Championship with victory over Nottingham Forest, who had Matt Mills sent off.

Matt Ritchie's deflected free-kick put the Magpies in front early on.

Forest levelled against the run of play when Nicolao Dumitru swivelled to beat Karl Darlow on the volley.

Mills saw red for two bookings, and Gayle restored the lead with a hooked volley past stranded keeper Vladimir Stojkovic, before scuffing in a second.

The spite that threatened to overshadow the corresponding game at the City Ground earlier this month - when Newcastle had Jonjo Shelvey and Paul Dummett sent off in a 2-1 defeat - continued on Tyneside, with a third red card in two meetings and a flurry of yellow cards.

This match lacked the excitement and incident of that meeting, although it started brightly enough when Ritchie's early free-kick wickedly beat Stojkovic to lift a sell-out St James' Park crowd.

Forest, somewhat shell-shocked, struggled to muster a response but found themselves level when Newcastle failed to deal with Eric Lichaj's cross and Dumitru swept into the back of the net.

Newcastle responded after the break when Ritchie was denied from close range and, after Mills was sent off on the hour, Gayle fired them back in front after some sloppy Forest defending.

Gayle pounced for his second and 19th of the season at the far post as Forest's defence looked uncertain in Mills' absence, the decisive act of a fairly turgid game.

Newcastle United boss Rafael Benitez told BBC Newcastle: "Job done, pleased for that because we needed three points.

"However, if you analyse the game we were pushing and creating chances, I was pleased with the approach in the second half, the sending off gave us an advantage but we were doing what we had to do.

"Dwight [Gayle] is a great player, scoring goals and creating chances, I'm pleased for him, hopefully he can carry on scoring goals."

Nottingham Forest manager Philippe Montanier told BBC Radio Nottingham: "I prefer not to comment [on the Matt Mills red card] on what what's happened, it's incredible and it changes the game.

"We had a good first half, a good reaction after the unlucky goal, we draw level and have opportunities to score and 11-versus-11 we can hope for a better result.

"To concede so quickly the second goal after going down to 10 men, it was too tough."