Can Phil Airey make the grade?

Phil Airey is a name that is becoming rather familiar amongst NUFC fans these days, mainly due to his goalscoring exploits for the reserve team.

So part inspired by yet another goal from Phil Airey against West Ham reserves, as well as Dan4toon's fair and well balanced look at Haris Vuckic, I thought that I would take this chance to have a look at another one of our youngsters. After all, it does appear that they will be featuring heavily in the plans for the future of Newcastle United, so it only seems right that we take a look at them every now and again.

As mentioned earlier on, Airey once again scored for the reserves in the 4-2 defeat to West Ham which took his goal haul to seven goals in nine appearances. This is a fantastic return albeit at a lower level than the Premier League. It does however show us that the lad can finish.

In fact from what I've seen and heard of him, it's his finishing that is one of his strongest suits and he seem to have a canny knack of knowing where the back of the net is. Granted the lad looks a little bit lightweight, but that can be addressed. What matters is that knack of finding the back of the net.

At 19-years-old and a relatively local (born in Amble which is about 30 miles North of Newcastle) lad you would have to hope that Airey can continue to impress and most importantly continue to improve. He has certainly done that this year and of he keeps going it will only be a matter of time before he is knocking on the door of the first team.

You could argue that he is already kind of involved in the first team as he has already made his debut for the senior side and has featured on the bench a number of times. Airey currently has the number 38 shirt at the famous Newcastle United club ;)

I firmly believe that if you are good enough then you are old enough, but I also believe that only applies to certain players like Michael "shitbag" Owen and Wayne "granny banger" Rooney. All of the rest have to work for their chance in the first team, and Airey will be no different. Perhaps it may stop him from becoming a spoilt brat with everything handed to them on a plate at 17-years-old like Rooney and Owen did? Who knows? I just wanted to get a sly dig at those two in there.

So in answer to my original question: Can Phil Airey make the grade? In short it's far too early to tell for definite, but he has time on his side and is seemingly intent on getting his head down and improving. You don't hear of Airey being late or acting the big boy unlike Nile Ranger who is also 19-years-old.

What impression do you get of Airey? Do you think he could step up one day? Have you seen him play regularly?

Let us know what you think.