The winger featured for the Magpies’ Under-21 side in their Checkatrade Trophy clash with Oldham Athletic, pulling a goal back for the visitors late on as they suffered a 4-1 defeat at the SportsDirect.com Park.

And the 21-year-old told nufc.co.uk he has relished the chance to take on much of the creative responsibility in United second string over the past few weeks.

“I love it. I want to feel like the team relies on me,” he said. “It’s pointless me being on the pitch otherwise. I want to be the one they look to to score goals and create goals, and it’s part of my job. I love it really.

“I need to stop missing the chances. I need to take those chances and get better with my final ball, but I’ve not played a lot of games. The more games I play, the more goals I’ll score and the more goals I’ll create.

“You can’t recreate game time in training, so if you’re playing games – even at this level – you’re going to get sharper.”

Braces from Jack Byrne and Eoin Doyle put the League One side 4-0 up before Aarons nodded in a consolation for Peter Beardsley’s side.

But Aarons has backed the Magpies youngsters to recover from their recent run of poor form, and says they’ll be able to learn from their loss to the Latics.

“Obviously it’s disappointing, especially in the second half when we conceded three goals in succession,” he said. “But hopefully me and the boys will learn from it and it won’t happen again.

“It’s difficult because in the first team it doesn’t really happen – they’re a bit more experienced. The boys are young, and I’m kind of one of the elder ones now, so I was trying to help them out. Hopefully the younger ones can learn from it.

“They just need to learn from stuff like this, because they play good football – they just lack a bit of the dirty side of football, which you learn from experience. You saw them (Oldham), and they had it, so if they get a bit of that in their game they’ll be fine.”