Can Phil Airey make the grade?

toonsy

Phil Airey is looking the part.
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.

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

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113 thoughts on “Can Phil Airey make the grade?”

  1. From what I’ve seen he looks the part and we actually have a small nippy striker coming through instead of the giants we usually get.

    Also I hear Airey waxes lyrical about Newcastle 😉

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  3. Nice one, Toonsy – not just recognising someone who deserves a bit of limelight, but doing it before he’s dried off from the post-match shower. 🙂

    Let’s face it, he’s got a fantastic opportunity. The other ‘nearly there’ teenage striker is busy ballsing his chance up by having a lousy attitude and too many tattoos. The previous incumbent of the ‘local lad done good’ tag has shown himself to be a pikey and general *****-munching judas who’ll play for anyone who shows him enough wedge and a bin to dip into.

    If Airey can just keep going, doing what he is and not get distracted, he could do well. Whether he has the ability at the next level is another thing, but boy does he have a gap to step into right now!

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  4. Nae idea as I’ve hardly seen anything of him, but I hope so as it’s always great to see one come through the ranks and make it.

    Well done on making it to “caught offside” Dan…..I’ve no idea how you get on there or what you have to do though 😉

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  5. Hey – as someone living nearly 400 miles away, Amble counts as local lad in my book! To be honest, he could be from Alpha Centauri for all I care as long as his loyalty and passion aren’t outranked by his desire for gold-plated Range Rooneys.

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  6. TOONSY only seen kid twice so not gan to judge the kid yet.

    by the way i was on wrong tact when talked aboot digs,just my evil mind 🙄

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  7. Can I just ask that anyone who can go to the ressies matches does so and reports back on Airey and others on here? If these boys are a key part of the club’s strategy then the focus on them needs to follow suit.

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  8. The interesting point will come when we’ve got ourselves safe from relegation, and Pards has to choose which fringe striker to bring on – will it be Ranger or Airey? I’d love to see the latter have a proper run-out.

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  14. Toonsy nice to see the younguns getting a write up, from what little I have heard it sounds as if he has a lot of potential so I wish him well.
    As Whumpie was saying it would be nice to hear from bloggers that attend the Ressies I was wondering how Spears is doing to as he sounded as if he had potential a while back but I havn’t heard much about him in a while as I no longer have him as a friend on one of the social network site

    Ice hows you today mate oh and Satan looks well 😉

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  21. We complain about not having a small striker to feed off flick ons and when we develop one, we criticise he is a small striker and rant about beefing him up.

    You’d think football fans were all females the way they go on about size, lol.

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  22. I can understand bulking the likes of Shane Ferguson up as 50% of his time is gonna be at left back or tracking back.

    Airey is a speedy poacher – we bulk him up, we lose a bit of his movement. Leave him a little teenager.

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  23. I think it’s hilarious that people think we could just ‘bulk Fergie up’ and he will be able to play LB for us. Just like that eh. Mark my words he won’t be playing LB in the premier league any time soon if ever. he’s a LW. Dummet possibly but not yet.

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  24. Best way to get Ferguson as left back – train him in judo and jiu jitsu. Let him learn leverage against larger opponents.

    You can get a bodybuilder with muscles on his ears but he is not “powerful” in combat. It’s technique.

    Lets tech the dinky kids leverage.

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  25. Jonas has been mooted for LB but I would prefer this.

    ——————-Harper—————-
    Simpson–S.Taylor—-Willo—–Collo
    Jonas—–Nolan—–Tiote——Fergie
    ————-Ameobi–Best————–

    Thats if Barton, Enrique and Ireland are out as predicted. It’s gonna be another hard game with our two best players out = I don’t think we’ll get anything. A point would be good and it would be embarrassing to for Stoke to get the double.

    The home game against Wolves is must win IMO.

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  26. Why would it be embarrassing for Stoke to get the double?

    We don’t have this magical team a lot of people think we do. We have a poor squad with a decent first 11. We have no entitlement to beat anyone.

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  27. Well maybe not embarrasing but certainly dissapointing considering our home form and the fact that we had a half time lead.

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  33. Ice what size would satan be height wise would he be simular to a bull mastiff or dog de bordeaux ❓
    As for DJG he is a decent spud but dead easy to wind up 😀

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  35. DAVE rotty/doby height,m8,hes a hero,was rotty once barking in anger at womans gran-kids,he jumped fence and crushed rottys head with one bite stone dead,had been running riot in village for couple of days,you cannot check kids while there aboot

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  37. Ice I wouldn’t like to try to break him up if he got into a rut, as I know even with my Bull it takes all my strenght to pull him away.
    Richie you need to watch Ice and satan don’t call to visit you before you go 😉

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  38. Ice I was looking after 3 dogs for a mate. 2 little mongrels, one was the mam of the other and a big rotty dog. Was okay with people but had to keep it on a lead for most of the time. Mate said it had a fight with two big dogs and was flinging them around all ower the place. Best guard dogs on the planet but take alot of feeding like!

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  39. Ice @ 36 thats a cracker mate 😆 😆 😆
    Richie cant believe you robbed his scooter mate where were you going in that weather 😆

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  40. DAVE see what that bloody richie has done the rat bag.

    have you had any trouble with your bull,with “cherry eye”know they get trouble with it from time to time,unless you fix it first time round?

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  42. DJG bred and kept every sort of dogs,theres not a better alround dog than the amer/bulldog,take that from me m8

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  43. Big D he was okay actually with kids, some came up and I said yes stoke his head but leave the stick in his mouth, because he liked to keep possesion of a stick. My mam wanted to go the the toilet it was growling and she stopped I just pushed him back and said its okay. Apart from that was totally fine with people.

    And this is a dog that was a guard dog for a drug dealer apparently who left it to starve in his house. My friend rescued it and it ate 70 chicken drumsticks! So it is people not to be trusted really not the animal.

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  44. Ice my old dog has never had any probs at all except with his age now he is starting to get cateracts and he is hard of hearing but then I dont think his sight or hearing were ever that good 😆

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  46. DJG you have a good point there it is normally the owners that create faults in dogs,
    But the reason I mention Rotties is my mate is an army Dog Handler and he says the only ones he dosn’t trust are rotties and rotty x Labs

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  47. Ice my old dog still pee’s himself with excitment when he see’s dede walking down with his lead 😆 never with anyone else just dede but he has been around him from dede was born.
    I used to let dede sit on his back when he was younger then he would fall off and they would just play about and he has never been rough with dede

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  48. Don’t get me wrong dogs are daft animals and some will be bad. But this rotty wasn’t and by personal experience there’s many ‘saintly’ dogs that I wouldn’t trust. A Collie gave me a nip when I was a kid and some little dogs can be very aggressive.

    The best ones are those gun dogs you see in country pubs. Super intelligent and well behaved, I would say their probably the best if your talking about breeding.

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  49. Got to be a bit leery of shephards too. My uncle had this mean old white one- his favorite toy was a full size automibile tire out in the back yard that he would pick up in his mouth and hurl over a 6 foot high fence. Scary dog- use to just stare at you and growl.

    Another one bit my thigh and missed my nuts by a fraction- the dirty ******.

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  50. DJG Toonsy said you were fond of Dogs but I didn’t believe him mate 😆
    I think all dogs have their plus’s and minus’s but I do believe the owners are the most important factor, but I have found that most dogs arn’t that keen on being around Kids, I think its because kids can be a bit unpredictable. My missus wee mini yorkie do’s a runner and hides upstairs when the grandkids come in as they are always running around trying to pull her about 😀

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  52. I’ve only seen him the 10 minutes he came on against Stevanage, so I can’t really judge him yet but his record looks very good.

    Lets hope he can push through the ranks just like Nile and Judas did.

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  53. They are ok once they get to know you usually, they need to trust you. I don’t have any dogs. I’ve just got a cat, with them it takes weeks before they trust you, especially if they are a crappy pants one like mine. 😆

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  54. Dave……I was on the way to the pub, but I didn’t nick it. It was Ice’s and I was on me way to pick him up as he was legless and couldn’t make it home 😉

    Don’t trust any dog completely wi kids, I had a German Shepherd for 5 years and she just used to lay on the grass while all the bairns in the street used to climb all over her, then one day she went for my daughter and bit her on the hand 🙁

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  55. MDS
    Posted March 15, 2011 at 8:37 PM

    “Another one bit my thigh and missed my nuts by a fraction- the dirty ******.”

    Some people would pay good money for that kind of thing 😉

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  56. never ever liked shepherds have to watch them come 7/8yrs old,70% of them turn bad,the ones ive know have.brother-in law has two he uses in his job in durham nick,has to change them when they get to 6 and half,and start again at 16mths old pups

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  57. Richie the dog handler mate said that they are wild animals and never to trust any off them 100% 😉
    I didn’t think you would go to so much bother for Ice, you could have let him float home.

    AndrewNUFC lets just hope he gets the time as we put alot of pressure on the younguns

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  58. Yeah don’t trust them with kids. It’s usually because kids are daft and push them in the face and stuff. My granny had a cat that was really tame but this bairn came round and stroked it backwards, got a scratch off the cat.

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  59. Ice….I had a mongrel at the time too(ex still has her) half the size of the GS but jumped on her back so the Shepherd changed her attention to her. Had her put down the next day. Beautiful dogs but usually get really attached to one person and temperament has suffered with the amount of inbreeding in them imo.

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  60. Aye BD….
    I never expected owt from Judas (as I am sure a lot of fans would agree), maybe that’s why he developed so well. I personally thought he was a nob and the new Michael Chopra.

    I was right about him being a nob….

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  62. @ 57

    Aye Dave, It’s annoying, some complain the young ones dont play enough and when they do and don’t make a good impression they say there not good enough.

    He needs time.

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  63. RICHIE your reet,but its happened to a lot of breeds now,its like this cruffs,hate the whole show, people breeding so called faults out of dogs to make cash,pleased bbc ect have back-heeled the gits

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  64. Im feeling quietly confident about Airey.

    If he does make the grade hope we get to keep this one ffs! 😡

    nevermind dogs Ashley is breeding and selling footballers. 🙂

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  65. richie

    Mongrels are great arn’t they. I think there’s something about breeding that can make dogs a bit wierd, agree with what most are saying about disliking GS’s.

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  66. AndrewNUFC its the same with Ranger aswell he gets crucified for not scoring but he hasn’t had that much gametime really and I think when he gets his 1st he will be a different player.
    Vukic has been hailed as the next best thing since sliced bread and then when he did get a few mins he was rubbished by some, Lua Lua was another one I heard getting hammered that he wasn’t good enough and this was based on one game which I thought he done well in 😆

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  67. RICHIE is that why you nicked my 2 bot of j/dee and wallet,keeping me off the demon drink and all that,how thoughtful of you 👿

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  68. Dave I agree, I can not think of many 19 year olds in the Prem at the same stage which Ranger is at. If Ranger was turning up late and then putting in **** peformances on the pitch then I would be worried – every time he comes on he makes an impact.

    LuaLua did not impress at all during the early stages but before his injury at Brighton he was on fire for them. Think we played Accrington Stanley in the cup and he did class, hit the post if I remember.

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  69. Aye, but then think about Jack Wilshire.

    You reckon he turns up late for training? Does he hell, one of the first on the training ground and last off it.

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  70. Djg….aye the mongrels great, the inbreeding does affect the health and the temperament of them like.

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  71. Moreno. 🙂

    Airey is a grafter at the training ground, likes his golf aswell apparently. Out of Ranger and Airey I know who my moneys on. 😉

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  73. Even Lovenkrands has come out and said that he trys to tell Ranger things but he’s not listening.

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  74. Moreno I agree Ranger needs to sort himself, I rekon he will, from what Pardew said it’s not like it happens all the time.

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  75. Loan him to a local non league team, see if his big time Charlie attitude gets adjusted when some hairy arsed brick layin part timer puts him on his **** 😈 😆

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