Stars Salute Campbell

By Dan King - Newcastle United Club Reporter

Teenage striker Adam Campbell made his Barclays Premier League debut as a late substitute against Stoke City, and has been backed to enjoy a successful career at St. James' Park.

Alan Pardew, John Carver and Yohan Cabaye have all praised the flame-haired forward, who came on for the final four minutes of normal time on Sunday and, with his first touch, helped to set up Papiss Cisse's dramatic winner.

Ever since winning the Most Valuable Player award at the Manchester United Premier Cup World Finals in the summer of 2010, the 18-year-old's name has been known to Newcastle fans and his displays in last season's Premier Academy League Group D title-winning under-18 team further highlighted his talent.

This season, he became the youngest player to represent the Club in Europe when he came on against Atromitos in August. Since then, he has been in prolific form in the Barclays Under-21 Premier League and Pardew told nufcTV: "We've got such high hopes for him.

"He's a terrific representative for this football club. Forget how good he's going to be - he's a lovely little kid, a lovely person from a lovely family and it was great for him.

"Can you imagine coming on for eight minutes, he plays the simplest pass he's ever played probaby in his career to (Sylvain) Marveaux and Marveaux creates the goal. So the greatest pass he'll ever play, he's just played it.

"But he'll do something better than that. He'll get a goal for us and smash one in the top corner one day and then hopefully we'll have a real quality player on our hands."

Assistant Manager John Carver also spoke to nufcTV and revealed that Campbell had been through a week of ups and downs in the build-up to his big-time bow.

"He loves this football club," Carver said. "He's a proper local lad, he's come through the system which is credit to Joe Joyce and all the staff that worked with him like Willie (Donachie) and Peter (Beardsley).

"He had a little bit of disappointment through the week because we pulled him out of the England squad to travel to Russia with us - which in a sense isn't really that disappointing but he wasn't able to represent his country.

"And he almost got on on Thursday night (at Anzhi Makhachkala) but the manager just changed his mind at the last minute. But to get on in a Premier League game at his age - we know he's not the biggest but he's got a lot of quality and that's why he got his opportunity.

"He deserves his opportunity. He's been scoring goals in the under-21 team and I was so pleased for him."

And stand-in skipper Cabaye - who knows all about playing for his hometown club after starting out with Lille, near his birthplace of Tourcoing, added: "He's a young lad and he has a very good mentality.

"He wants to play for his club because he's from Newcastle and he has a big motivation. I love his pace and he can score a lot of goals, I think. I was very happy to see him on the pitch.

"I told him after the game and I hope it will give him a good mentality to keep working hard to stay in the team and to have a big career, because I think he has the potential to play really well for the team and to score many goals." 

To watch the full interviews with Pardew, Carver and Cabaye, subscribe to nufcTV here