Kieron Dyer is one of England's brightest young players and cost Newcastle £6m when he moved from Ipswich in July 1999, but has shown regually why some of the best football names in the game regard him so highly.

Dyer was only 20 years of age when he joined Toon and Kieron quickly added England full caps to the collection of Youth, Under-21 and B caps he had built up at Ipswich, but he narrowly missed out on Kevin Keegan's final squad for Euro 2000 in Holland and Belgium.

Dyer has a strength which makes him hard to shake off the ball, and his light frame allows him the speed to get away from opponents. In his first Newcastle season he was one of the stars in a struggling team, but his second was haulted many times by injury, mainly to his shins. He struggled on though even when clearly not fit but he had to go under the surgeon's knife on two occasions in March 2001 in order to put an end to the stress fracture that was eventually diagnosed as causing the pain in his shin.

Dyer, who is rated by Sir Bobby Robson at over £20m, also had problems in 2002 with sore shins, and after a fantastic half season with Newcastle in 2001-02, he was picked for the England squad for the 2002 World Cup. Dyer played in three of England's games until they got knocked out in the quarter finals.

Kieron had an injury free season in 2002-03 which helped United qualify for the Champions League for the second season running, with Dyer setting up most of the goals. He formed an amazing partnership with felow England midfielder Jermaine Jenas which looks good for the future for Newcastle. Dyer is also vice captain at United along with Gary Speed, and captained the side for the first time against Everton in the Worthington Cup tie in October. Dyer has the chance to become a United legend, especially if h can bring that one trophy into St James' Park next season,.