RAFA Benitez insists he has full confidence in Karl Darlow to fill the void left by Rob Elliot's season-ending knee ligament injury.

The 25-year-old Newcastle keeper is set to make only his second Premier League appearance in Saturday's relegation scrap with Norwich City after Elliot joined first-choice Tim Krul in being ruled out until next season. 

Second-bottom Newcastle hope to stem a run of seven consecutive away defeat when they travel to Carrow Road aiming to close the three-point gap to the fourth-bottom Canaries, who were swept aside 6-2 at St James' Park in October.

"It's not good news to lose Rob," admitted manager Benitez. The Spaniard added: "Now we have to concentrate on what we can do, and we have to support Karl all we can. Mentally he's right to come in, he's confident and we know he can do it.

"From what we've seen in training he's a good keeper with good qualities and he's confident. A team has to defend from the strikers backwards and we'll try to protect Karl like we would any keeper."

Darlow's only taste of top flight action came in the 1-0 defeat at West Brom in December, when he performed to mixed reviews after coming in as a late replacement for illness-hit Elliot. The former Nottingham Forest keeper featured in a 3-1 defeat for his former club at Carrow Road 12 months ago, while he also appeared in the 4-1 Capital One Cup victory over Northampton in August.

Newcastle have not come away with three points from a trip to Norfolk for more than 20 years, and Benitez added: "Of course, Karl's not played a lot of Premier League games, but he has experience in the Championship. We've not really done anything extra with him this week, we have another training session today and will keep an eye on him but he's trained well and he's ready."

Elliot is set to be sidelined for at least six months after suffering his knee injury during the Republic of Ireland's 2-2 friendly draw with Slovakia on Tuesday. Benitez, who will have England Udner-19 keeper Freddie Woodman on the bench after claiming Newcastle were unable to bring in an out of contract replacement, added: "It was very bad news for us and for Rob, but I saw him the day after and he's quite confident he'll be back as soon as possible.

"He's very positive and I was surprised because it's a bad time for him. We can do nothing at the moment, we can't sign another keeper, so we have to wait and support him and hopefully he's back a soon as possible."

With Jack Colback starting the first of a two match ban, and Paul Dummett and Massadio Haidara both out injured, Moussa Sissoko is again set to figure at left back, after the French midfielder ended up filling in there towards the end of the Tyne-Wear derby.

Fabricio Coloccini remains at least a week away form a return from a calf injury that has kept the skipper out since mid-February, but Daryl Janmaat is expected to play after recovering from a knee injury sustained in the 1-1 draw with Sunderland last month. Benitez added: "We still have one or two problems, but the injury situation is looking much better."