It's a load of drivel though, as we had the second best defence in the league that season despite what the press tell you.
We lost the league because Ferdinand's arse fell out, and also Lee stopped scoring for about 3 months too. If we'd have had Shearer for that run-in we would have won it, due to him being a lot tougher mentally than Sir Les. So I can totally understand why Keegan decided to bring him in.
Aye, the press always bang on about our defence but the stats show we were decent in defence. We just seemed to give goals away at key moments but that was our approach to games. Try and win every single game.