Up until the start of pre-season this year, you might be forgiven for only recognising Rolando Aarons as one of the "bairns" who sometimes gets a namecheck in Newcastle Reserve game match reports on NUFC.com, but things have changed rapidly for the player who said this was going to be his year back in January. https://twitter.com/R_Aarons16/status/418476013971308544 Inevitably, brilliant emerging form and huge potential have meant that Aarons is already the most hyped Newcastle player in a long time, and incredibly, he seems to be showing those predictions - as well as his own - to be wholly justified. He's already got two goals, made one and he's touched the ball just 67 times. How good can he be? As good as he wants to be. He has no fear, running at and breezing past defenders who cost more than the Newcastle first team against City, and his run to the physio when he scored suggests a maturity that hopefully means he makes the right decisions (and stays with Newcastle longer than Andy Carroll did). If he's being likened to the "new Raheem Sterling", it's because he plays with the same pace, the same attacking edge and the same lack of fear, and the idea that both could be in the same England side at one point should scare every young defender in the world. And it looks like Aarons has a big future at Newcastle - and soon. Alan Pardew has again been talking about the club's deliberate decision to look to the Academy more, rather than shell out on terrible foreign youngsters like Fabio Zamblera, and while he has failed to deliver in his selections (aside from against City), there is something in his language that suggests he is more willing to give youth a chance: (Press conference ahead of Liverpool) The performance of the young players who came in (v Man City) will have surprised some people, do you now feel they are going to feature more?
The answer to that is yes, because we think we have a really good crop of young players here. Four out of the Academy played; Dummy, Armstrong, Rolando and Sammy Ameobi. Only Sammy weve really waited for, the other three have sort of made their progress very rapidly and all of that four they all have great talent and deserve to be in and around our team.
Obviously the other name drops are important to note, especially as he specifically talked up Armstrong - but the fact that he took Rolando Aarons off at half-time (and left Ryan Taylor on for ninety minutes) suggests that he might have half a mind on starting the former Bristol City winger against Brendan Rodgers' side. Should he? Has Aarons played enough to warrant a start? The answer is yes, he's good enough to be thrown straight in as long as he's genuinely fit, as Liverpool know themselves how difficult it is for opposition teams to cope with pacy, direct players like Raheen Sterling. So maybe the answer is to play him out wide on the left for 60 minutes, before letting Sammy Ameobi or Yoan Gouffran come on and take advantage of the fatigue of the full-back? Would you start Rolando Aarons against Liverpool?
