ALEKSANDAR MITROVIC returns to action in a Newcastle United shirt tonight, insisting he has never looked to turn his back on St James’ Park following relegation and it is his dream to win trophies on Tyneside.

The powerful Serbian, who has been serving a four-match suspension for his sending-off against Tottenham on the final day of last season, has received plenty of advice from manager Rafael Benitez in the hope he can keep his head and lead a promotion charge.

But his first outing of the season will be in the EFL Cup against Cheltenham as he looks to build up his match fitness in the hope of impressing enough to figure against Brighton on Saturday evening.

Mitrovic, a £13m buy from Anderlecht last year, had an indifferent first year in the Premier League but has not been looking to leave, like Moussa Sissoko and Georginio Wijnaldum.

Siem de Jong departed yesterday when he completed a season-long loan to PSV Eindhoven, where he will team up with his brother Luuk, the former Newcastle player.

There also remains interest in Daryl Janmaat, while goalkeeper Tim Krul looks set to move to Ajax before the end of the transfer window.

Benitez is also on the look out for competition for Mitrovic and Dwight Gayle, with long term target Bas Dost, the Wolfsburg striker, interesting him and Aston Villa.

 Mitrovic, however, has never even thought about asking to jump ship.

The 21-year-old said: “I knew I wanted to stay here. My dream was to succeed here, to play here, I'm following my dream. Hopefully I can win titles and cups with this club. I'm staying to make my dream come true.”

For that to happen Newcastle need him to live up to his price tag and Benitez being able to call on him, rather than have him on the sidelines through suspension.

Mitrovic picked up seven yellow cards and two reds during his first year and built up a reputation as something of a hot-head for his style of play. Benitez has spent a large amount of time reminding him that he needs to tread more carefully.

The Newcastle boss said: “We are talking to him all the time, watching videos of past games and training with him, coaching him and we are always telling him what he has to do and what he has not to do and how he has to react.

“It is a process, it is not something that can be done by just clicking your fingers. We have to keep talking and working with him.

“Every day you say to him, be careful with this and that and guess what will happen with certain situations. He is still a young player so he is still learning, because he is such a strong player, people think he is a senior player with a lot of experience but that is not the case.

“He is still learning and still improving. We show him where he has gone wrong in the past and we can reminding him and repeating so that he gets the message.

“I have had a lot of them and the only way is to repeat the same message time and again so that they realise and hopefully after four games ban he will have learned.”

Both Mitrovic and Benitez think there is a way he can play with Dwight Gayle, although he is likely to start up front on his own tonight.

Newcastle have a couple of injury doubts ahead of the visit of Cheltenham, who returned to the Football League after sealing promotion last season. Benitez wants to take the EFL Cup seriously even though he knows that a Premier League return is the priority.

Benitez, who admitted Ciaran Clark will not play, said: "All managers will say: 'Yes I want to do well in the cup.' But the priority is the league. The teams at the bottom of the table, what do they want? To stay up, so they don't want to think about the cup. It doesn't mean for me that you forget about the cup.

“I would never say: 'The priority for me is the league and I don't care about the cup.' No, it's not true. My priority is the next game. If I can manage to keep a squad with enough confidence to play, think they can do well and if someone doesn't play it's because they know the manager is managing the squad, then we can do well.

“A player needs to realise he will have an opportunity to show their level in a cup game. Then we will be stronger because of the competition. For example, if Mitrovic is to show something it has to be in this game. Gayle is scoring goals and is playing well, so Mitrovic cannot wait until the next game.

“You increase the competition between players and you keep the level high. If you can do that then you will be performing well in the cup competitions and in the league. The problem with the cup competitions is that, if you don't progress, then players struggle to see what you are saying.

“But if you progress then you can: 'Listen, we can win a trophy. We can get to a final. We can win a trophy.' So my approach has to be: I will pick the team, and everyone will then talk about who I am bringing into the team. But these players have to be really important for us in this game.”

Newcastle: Darlow; Janmaat, Lascelles, Hanley, Dummett; Shelvey, Colback; Aarons, Perez, Ritchie; Mitrovic.