TRon

He hunts goals like only a true striker would. That's what I like about him.

They'll keep him now. Fair play ro the lad he's proven his worth. Everything you want in s striker.

Dalglish came in after Keegan, I would say with Shearer having a big say in it since they had a great relationship from their Blackburn days.

When he realised Spurs aren't in this to win trophies unless it happens on a tight budget.

But he would be a very good squad filler tbh, look at his attributes. Can play across the front line, in a few different midfield roles, is big and and can run for 90 mins. Plus he has a great attitude and work ethic. He's not the worst footballer either, tbh he looks like De Bruyne compared to someone like Wood. I agree he's not good enough to command a first team place for much longer, but I think Howe will definitely want to keep him around to use tactically over a season.

It's just my personal opinion but I actually hero worshipped Andy Cole more than Shearer. Maybe it was just the way he scored his goals. Shearer scored loads, but he didn't get as many from open play, and I always thought with us having a shitter team for his latter years we'd have been better served with a more pacy striker. That's not a criticism of Shearer, it's a bit like when you don't have a good team, you need one man band types like Maxi to produce goals from nowhere.

Agree. Maxi's a wonderful talent, but he's obviously selfish in the way he plays the game, he was already walking a tightrope with Howe if you ask me. The manager's not stupid enough to get rid of a player because of some quote in a French newspaper, but what he says is also reflected on the pitch, he's not a team man. Regardless of this there was always a question mark whether ASM is going to have a long term future here.

I've been here before with Shearer tbh, I know he was a great player, just don't think we saw the best of him. He needed a different type of service to be at full effectiveness, I know Man U fans who said if he'd been at Old Trafford he'd have really shone. I think it's because he was a great striker playing with too many ordinary players at Newcastle. We had some really good players but not a great team for a lot of the years he was here.

Never really got on the Shearer worship train tbh, he was a great player but we never really saw the best of him I felt. Not sure if that was because he was slightly less explosive after his knee injury, or maybe we just didn't feed him as effectively as his Blackburn team mates did, where he looked sensational. He was always quite careful with his words as well, maybe the opposite of Keegan which made him a bit harder to get on board with. He's good mates with Bruce and he puts a lot of importance on that, I can understand it. But it makes him a terrible pundit.

I've always thought Pickford is a good keeper, just not convinced he's that much better than Dubravka. If we are going to upgrade, we should be going for a really commanding goalie, not just a shot stopper, and Pickford strikes me as more of a stopper.

Waste of a squad space IMO, but whatever.

Best header I can remember for a long time.

Seems quite harsh to impose a lifetime ban but I'm assuming that was because he got abusive to the staff. Banning from the stadium for pitch invaders will probably stop future incidents, so it's a good deterrent.

You missed out Liverpool, they were comfortably more of a priority than Newcastle, even if they didn't want him in return. Says a lot about him that he ditched them when he thought they weren't up to his standard then tried to go crawling back when they were on the rise again. I think he's not so well thought of there now either, which says even more.

Yeah we really just need an alternative to Wilson to share the main strike duties, you wouldn't want to get rid of him. What would be the point? At 30 he's not going to fetch big money, and he's still top class when he's fit.

We are going to need a new striker next season regardless, but it will be a good indicator of how effective we could look with a Wilson-type striker in there for the few remaining games. Don't know about you, but I can't wait to see how Bruno operates with that type of forward in front of him as opposed to a Wood or Joelinton.

A Wilson style striker really is the missing piece. He was good before we got Bruno, can only imagine he's licking his lips at the thought of what he could do with someone who will fire him in at will.

Sadly this is what is in line for us.

Even two games with Bruno threading through the killer passes would be something to look forward to.

That's because the way he plays is really ineffectual at the top level. It's exciting to see, but how many of his marathon dribbles actually come to anything? More often than not he loses the ball, and even when he does get through the defence, by the time he's finished his stepovers and tricks, the rest of his team mates are marked up. Strikers like the ball in early so they have some space to attack.

Smith was a poor player by the time he signed for us, but at least he didn't come here under protest while wanting to be somewhere else all along. That was my main problem with Owen, not his ability. He was just a massive cunt.

You have to allow for the cunt factor which may well override his competence in many ways.

Anelka and Boa Morte would have been ideal signings for us at that time, they would have replaced at least some of the pace and dynamism that we lost with Bellamy - which was mostly Souness's fault tbh, but at least he could have been allowed to fix his own mistakes.