MICHAEL CHOPRA has been backed to finally live up to the hype that surrounded his teenage years at Newcastle United - starting tomorrow against newly-crowned Premiership champions Chelsea.

The former England Under-20 international has so far been unable to fulfil the potential that former boss Sir Bobby Robson always insisted he had.

Chopra, in his younger days, had to cope with being tipped to become the first player of Asian descent to play for England.

But, despite shining for his country at youth level, his career has gone backwards over the past 12 months and has been unable to force his way into the Newcastle first-team, let alone Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad.

But Chopra, after scoring 17 goals in 38 starts for League One side Barnsley this season, is back at St James' Park and could be given a chance to shine against Chelsea.

"I don't think he will find the step from League One to the Premiership too difficult," said Newcastle team-mate Darren Ambrose.

"On one hand, it is hard. But he went there (Barnsley) to prove that he is good enough to play for Newcastle United. He didn't go there to do well at Barnsley.

"He is a natural goalscorer and that is what we need. He has the drive to play for Newcastle, this is his club. I think he wants to be the next Alan Shearer. I hope he can do that.

"He has the same qualities as Alan in terms of being a goalscorer. If he gets a run of games in the first team next year I think he can score a lot of goals."

Chopra, who has also had loan spells at Watford and Nottingham Forest, is now 21 and could be in line for only his second Newcastle start tomorrow because Shola Ameobi is suspended and Patrick Kluivert is struggling to be fit.

If the talented forward does start, Ambrose believes the chance to shine against the best side in the country should act as the perfect spur to every player at the club.

Newcastle have had a dreadful campaign and are guaranteed to finish in the bottom half of the table.

But Ambrose said: "It couldn't be much tougher for him to come into but it couldn't be much better either. We all need something like this to finish our season.

"If we get a good result we can go into the summer with some confidence at the end of what has been a disappointing season for us. The manager doesn't have to stress anything or tell us what we have to do. The game speaks for itself. They are the champions."

Ambrose has been another young gun who has struggled to make an impact under manager Graeme Souness and there are strong suggestions that he could be one of the men being offloaded in the summer.

He has enjoyed a decent run of form of late, scoring two goals in the last five games he has played but has started only 17 league matches since joining from Ipswich two years ago.

Ambrose admits, after finally breaking into Souness' thoughts, he will be sorry for the whistle to blow on a season almost everyone else at Newcastle will be keen to forget.

"I want the season to go on, I'm starting to enjoy myself," he said.

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