FORMER York City goal hero Marco Gabbiadini believes new Bootham Crescent signing Paul Robinson can help fire the Minstermen to success this season.

Gabbiadini and Robinson were striking partners at Hartlepool last season and the ex-Sunderland and Derby forward feels his old team-mate could play a crucial role in City's Nationwide Conference campaign as long as he maintains his self-belief and others around him have confidence in his ability.

Robinson was expected to make his City debut at Aldershot today and Gabbiadini said: "Paul's an exciting player to watch and I enjoyed playing with him. He's got a lot of pace and likes to get on the ball and run at people, which is something I liked to do.

"The downside of playing like that is sometimes you lose the ball and people can't always appreciate that, so you have to be strong enough to accept you might get some stick.

"He's a confidence player, like most strikers, and if he is going through a sticky spell, he needs to keep that belief in himself and also get that belief from people around him because he needs to play his natural game.

"He's at a good age and has maybe not achieved what he could have done playing at the level he has but, hopefully, he can realise he's still got plenty to achieve and a number of years left in which to achieve it."

One match from last season in particular stands out for Gabbiadini to illustrate former Newcastle striker Robinson's potential and it will bring back painful memories for another City summer signing, Paul Groves.

Robinson, 25, hit a hat-trick in an 8-1 thrashing of Grimsby, who were managed by Groves at the time - but not for much longer.

"He's a goalscorer and a goal creator and that game sticks out in my mind," Gabbiadini recalled. "Paul scored three and I think he set up four.

"People who were at that game would be surprised to see that he's playing outside the League but it happens. I dropped down a bit during my career and you have to bounce back."

Robinson, who cost Wimbledon £1.5million when he left Newcastle in 2000, hit nine goals in 23 League and cup starts for Hartlepool last term.

But he failed to net in any of his last 21 matches for Pool and lost his place to Adam Boyd, who returned from a loan spell at Boston to hit the target 12 times in the last 13 matches.

Gabbiadini (in action for City, left) had retired because of knee problems by that stage but, about Robinson's declining fortunes at Hartlepool, he said: "Paul took on players to good effect at Hartlepool during the first half of the season and was one of the main reasons we did so well but Neale Cooper was a fair manager and, if you were not playing well, you were out of the side. If you were 16 and playing well or 36, like myself, he would not be scared of bringing you in.

"Paul had a bit of a dip and found himself out of the team when Adam Boyd came back and started scoring a goal a game."

But after last season's poor return in front of goal, Gabbiadini is hoping his first club can adopt a new attacking approach helmed by Robinson.

He said: "It's an important season and I think the most important thing at Conference level is scoring goals, which was a problem last season. That's not just a striker thing, it's a team thing because you have got to have that ethic to score goals.

"It's not about survival this season, it's about promotion and that means you have to attack teams. Hopefully Paul Robinson can help do that."

Updated: 11:44 Saturday, August 14, 2004