WHEN one door closes, another one opens wide. Elliot Anderson might be the homegrown midfielder that got away from Newcastle United, as he will attempt to prove when he returns to St James’ Park with Nottingham Forest this weekend, but in Lewis Miley, Eddie Howe is confident the Magpies have another academy playmaker capable of hitting even greater heights than his former team-mate.

Anderson has been revelation at the City Ground this season, making 24 Premier League appearances as Nuno Espirito Santo’s Forest side have made an unexpected push for Champions League qualification.

Newcastle didn’t want to lose him in the summer, with Howe admitting the PSR-forced decision to sell the 22-year-old was one of his toughest moments as Magpies boss. Even then, though, he knew he had another supremely-talented youngster waiting in the wings.

For most of last season, Miley was ahead of Anderson in the pecking order on Tyneside. Admittedly, some of that was down to the teenager being one of the few fit midfielders in the Newcastle squad, but while Anderson has established himself as a Premier League regular this season, rewind 12 months, and it was Miley that was being discussed as a potential star of the future.

Since then, the Stanley-born 18-year-old has struggled with injury. A back problem sidelined him at the end of last season, before a broken metatarsal ruined his pre-season and ruled him out of the first half of the current campaign. He is back now, though, having delivered an impressive cameo appearance off the bench at Manchester City last weekend, and while Anderson might be starring in the here and now, there is confidence on Tyneside that Miley will eventually be more than his equal.

“At this moment, I think Lewis can be anything he wants to be,” said Howe. “The bar is that high for him. When I watch him in training, as of course we do every day, you see the level of player we have.

“The challenge for him, and I’ve said this many times, is that he has to break into a midfield of Sandro Tonali, Bruno (Guimaraes), Joelinton when he’s fit, Joe Willock and Sean Longstaff. It’s a really good group of players, and to get ahead of those starting players is not easy.

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“But it will be a testament to his ability if he can, and how quickly he can. He’s certainly doing himself no harm by coming onto the pitch as he did against Manchester City, and having the strength to showcase his abilities in that kind of game.”

For all his undoubted potential, Miley’s future pathway will at least partially be determined by how and when opportunity knocks. Anderson has been handed a first-team opportunity at the City Ground – had he remained with Newcastle this season, there is a good chance he would have been performing a bit-part role from the substitutes’ bench.

Sometimes, young players simply need a chance to prove their capabilities at the highest level. Miley got that last season and sparkled. Given how poorly Newcastle performed at the Etihad Stadium last weekend, particularly in midfield, where Joe Willock was especially disappointing, there must surely be a good chance of him being handed a first league start of the current campaign against Forest on Sunday afternoon.

“Elliot broke into our team at the back end of last season and was really beginning to show his level of ability, the attacking level of ability he has,” said Howe. “He’s taken that on to another level, partly of course because he’s played every week.

“Lewie is a totally different player to Elliot, I wouldn’t compare them both, but Lewie has got standout qualities. He is very much in and around that (starting position) at the moment. That performance against Manchester City was very much the one big positive to take from the game.

“There weren’t many, but he approached the game in the way that we should have done from the start. He was brave in both phases – aggressive off the ball and brave on it. He was fearless in his approach and played his normal game.”

The fact that Miley outperformed the rest of his team-mates at the Etihad despite only coming off the bench at half-time spoke volumes for the paucity of Newcastle’s all-round performance, with Howe insisting that none of his players can afford to take their place in the starting line-up for granted.

“They have to impress every day,” he said. “That's their job. You can't live on past performances. I very much have to have my eyes on what I see every day and make many assessments to then lead to the next game, and I've always lived by that. Then we move on to the next game and I'm making those assessments again.

“There are big motivations at the moment for players to do well. We have big games coming up, and I'm sure all of them want to be involved in those games, so there are a lot of good opportunities for them to prove they want to be in the team and stay in the team.”