Shearer is impressed by youngster Nile Ranger

Apr 11 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

NEWCASTLE United’s rookie striker Nile Ranger has received a ringing endorsement from new boss Alan Shearer – who has hinted at first-team involvement before the end of the season.

As difficult as it is to look to the long-term with United’s Premier League future resting on a knife edge, Ranger’s progression from the Academy side to the first team squad has buzzed away underneath the travails of the senior players.

Signed from Southampton in July 2008, the 18-year-old has scored 21 goals in second string and Academy games this season and is highly-rated enough to have been included in the first team squad at various points this season. Shearer saw him in person for the first time in Monday’s reserve team defeat of Bolton Wanderers and proclaimed himself impressed with the teenager. United’s caretaker boss will include him in the travelling party for the Stoke game this evening after the youngster responded positively to a ‘pep talk’ earlier this week.

“I’ve been very impressed by him. I was aware of him looking from the outside but when you start to work with players a little bit closer, you learn a bit more about them,” Shearer said.

“I’ve been impressed with both him and Andy – and Shola, to be fair.”

Shearer is looking for more inspiration from his senior players, too. Nerves and tension have been evident in even Newcastle’s key men over recent weeks – the failure to beat a poor Hull City team being a prime example.

Shearer has spent this week hammering home the message that his players need to be brave, as long as they aren’t being reckless in the wrong areas.

“I was involved in a relegation struggle at Southampton – almost every year,” he said. “It’s a tense and nervy situation to be in, as I remember it. It’s also tense and nervy when you’re at the top – that’s football.

“The players have to be big enough and brave enough to handle that. They need to say ‘Give me that ball, I’m not afraid to make a mistake’. That’s the key – they have to believe in their own ability.

“They are at a huge football club and I have said to them ‘I don’t mind mistakes in the right areas’ – as long as they are trying things.”