Eddie Howe has insisted that William Osula must remain patient as he waits for his opportunity to shine with Newcastle United in the Premier League.
The striker, signed for £15million during the summer, has played just 27 minutes this season in the top-flight and has been surprisingly overlooked at times when Newcastle were in dire need of an offensive boost. Osula comes into contention for minutes in the Carabao Cup tie against Brentford this evening at St James' Park.
Howe carefully graduated Lewis Miley into his first-team last season with the youngster making 26 appearances. When asked if Osula, 21, would also get his opportunity in good time, Howe said: "They are very different players of course but with any young player, I think you need a degree of patience, that's not just the player, that's the player's representatives, family, friends - you are on a path of development 16, 17, 18, 19 whatever age you are and even sometimes older, the way you are trying to get into the team you've got to develop your game, there's no point standing still.
"You've got to develop your game so when you come into the team, you're able to stay in the team. We encourage development all the time, we work with our players really hard to try and improve them."
Howe suggested that Osula is a player that still has room for improvement and hinted that could be the reason holding him back from more chances.
Howe said: "Will [Osula] falls into that category where again yesterday he worked extremely hard at his game and we hope that work will bear fruit at some stage in the future."