SAM Allardyce believes Ewood Park is the perfect place for Junior Hoilett to develop into a Premier League star – as he focuses on making youth a key ingredient to future Rovers success.

Canadian starlet Hoilett made his first Premier League start for Blackburn Rovers in Saturday’s goalless draw at Hull City and will be hoping for another starring role in tonight’s trip to Birmingham City.

The 19-year-old though is stalling on signing a new deal at Rovers, with his contract expiring in the summer, and talks are ongoing between his agent and the Ewood Park hierarchy.

Several German clubs are understood to be tracking his situation with ‘interest’, but boss Allardyce believes remaining in East Lancashire would be the best career choice for Hoilett.

He said: “I’m never confident about anyone committing their futures when it comes to contract negotiations.

"They are so long, arduous and difficult these days but I just hope we get there in the end and we can continue to grow Junior.

“There won’t be a better place for him to grow than here I can assure you of that and we hope that is going to be the case.

"But that is not my department, I leave that to the chairman and hopefully Junior would want to stay.

“Look at Franco Di Santo, and you say he wants to come and play football.

"He couldn’t quite manage that breakthrough at Chelsea because of the size of the squad, so he comes in and enjoys his football here and plays at the level he wanted to at Chelsea.

“When you have one of your own, you want to develop him for yourself and develop him into being a major success.

"When you have a Franco, you might want to make that permanent in the end if possible, but you may end up just developing him and send him back.”

Hoilett moved to Rovers from Canada at the age of 12, where he came through the youth ranks before being spending the last two seasons on loan in Germany due to work permit issues.

Rovers though have battled hard to keep hold of his talents and, after winning an appeal to finally land him a work permit, have slowly introduced him to life in the Premier League this campaign.

The former St Pauli winger has already played a key role in helping Rovers to the Carling Cup semi-final this season and, after some impressive Premier League cameo appearances, was handed his first league start at the KC Stadium.

“ I wasn’t surprised he caused them a few problems,” said Allardyce.

“We have a young man with good talent and good athletic ability and a nice introduction for the first time at Hull City was a good thing for him and a good thing for us for hopefully a long future together we might have.

“There is nothing better than a football club developing its own players and I particularly hope this is going to be the case because it has been a long time since Blackburn can say to themselves ‘we have produced another quality player to play in the Premier League'.

“We have produced many players that play in the Championship but we haven’t produced a player that consistently can play in the Premiership for a while.

“We have one or two others we think, like Phil Jones and Aaron Doran.

"There will be no one happier than me if these players do go on because it is always a big thing for a football club.

"Junior has been here since he was 12 years old and it would be great if the Blackburn fans could see him develop here and be a success.

“I have been constantly searching for younger talent to bring in for the football club because it is the only way forward for a club like ours.

"Compared to a few years ago where you were able to get the more experienced player - for a club like Blackburn that has become near on impossible, with the size of the fees.”