Shearer: I have the passion

[JJ7]

That interview has made my mind up. Get him in!

 

He is one of a kind, remember he was offered the player/managers job at Blackburn when he was 25!!!He`s more than 10 years older now. He has been the most respected player in English Football for a while and surely this means a hell of a f****** lot in the dressing room. Lets stop farting around with other managers. The answer is staring us in the face!

 

IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY!

 

Not sure if this is a serious post as I havent noticed you before, however....

 

You would appoint a manager on the basis of reading an interview in a down market tabloid newspaper? Its just a good job you arent chairman.

 

Shearer may be good, but he may be another Bryan Robson i.e. shite.

[Elma]

The bloke moved from Newcastle to Southampton to get games when he was clawing his way up as a footballer.  But he wouldn't be willing to move for professional reasons now, you're saying?  Don't buy it.

 

Tony Adams has gone from club to club getting experience from coaches and managers, all over Europe; I wouldn't want him as manager but at least he's having a proper go of it, doesn't assume he knows all he needs to.

 

You don't have to buy it. All I'm saying is that there are loads of reasons he may not want too. Doesn't mean to say he doesn't want or wouldn't do a good job at the club. He feels he doesn't need to - I'm not going to challenge him on that. If the hierarchy feel he is inexperienced and therefore won't be considered without a previous managerial role (and that eventually means he never gets it) then thats the way of life. He's just stated his position that's all. He feels he's ready. Mort and Ashley may disagree.

 

By the way, although it's not relevant to my arguement, the fact he moved as an unmarried teenager is completely different to someone with a wife and three kids. I travelled a lot with work eight years ago....I wouldn't now.

[Nate]

'Black Widow' Shearer answerable for Newcastle's demise

 

Michael Hann January 16, 2008 11:53 AM

 

Alan Shearer's conduct over the course of this season has been cowardly and cruel

 

Alan Shearer is the Winona Ryder of Newcastle United. She used to be known as the "Black Widow" due to her habit of picking up rock singers, having a relationship with them, and then discarding them, seemingly destroying their careers in the process.

 

Shearer's not that bad. He just picked the one football club - one he professes to love - and set about turning it into an adjunct of his ego. He never seems particularly concerned about what he could do for the club, unless "friends" divulging to supine journalists the circumstances under which he'd be prepared to manage the club actually counts as helping the Magpies. I'm not sure it does.

 

Now, it's probably true that not everything that has gone wrong at St James' Park in the past decade has been Shearer's fault. Just most of it. But what can one expect from a man who has spent so much of his career letting the world know that he is bigger than any team he plays for - even the national side. Remember when Graham Kelly said Shearer had threatened to withdraw from the England World Cup squad if the FA dared to punish him for the unfortunate and accidental contact his boot made with the head of the hapless Neil Lennon in April 1998?.

 

There were plenty who disliked Shearer long before he became the anointed one of Tyneside. At Blackburn he picked up a reputation for being a nasty, niggly player; one who was happy to bend the rules, harangue referees and offer opponents the benefit of the sharper parts of his anatomy. It's said that fans only hate opponents with ability. That's not true; we hate opponents who think they're above the rules, too. That's why people started to turn against Shearer.

 

But we didn't see how breathtakingly self-centred he was until August 1999, when Ruud Gullit was sacked as Newcastle manager after leaving Shearer out of the starting line-up for the home game against Sunderland. History records that the Magpies lost 2-1 and Shearer was regarded as having forced Gullit out. History less often records that Newcastle were 1-0 up at half-time and the scores were level when Shearer came on. As Gullit justifiably observed: "When we were 1-0 up no one complained. Then we put him on in the second half and lost. What conclusions do you draw from that?"

 

Bobby Robson followed Gullit and by the end of 2000 the Sunday Mirror was reporting his intentions. In a piece published on December 31 - in which Shearer was quoted, so it probably wasn't wild speculation - the paper noted that he would "take over from Robson in the summer of 2002". He didn't, of course. Robson wasn't going anywhere, but this was the first of the many false starts to Shearer's managerial career, and it set the pattern to come: the assumption that whatever Big Al wanted, Big Al would get.

 

Some thought it might finally happen in early 2004, when Robson left Shearer out of Newcastle's Uefa Cup game against Valarenga. Shearer told the world he was "angry, disappointed and very surprised" to be left out. And the world heard the sound of knives sharpening.

 

They weren't deployed on that occasion, but there was plenty of evidence that Shearer was exerting an unhealthy level of control during Robson's reign - not least in the manager's acceptance that the only way for Newcastle to play was in whatever fashion suited Shearer. Remember, by this point Shearer was shorn of his pace and wasn't the finisher of his prime, which meant Newcastle had to adjust their game to compensate for his weaknesses.

 

It's a tribute to Robson's skills that he was able to construct the only worthwhile Newcastle team since Kevin Keegan was boss given those constraints. It's also arguable, though, that having to build his team around Shearer prevented Robson from rebuilding, at a time of strength, in a fashion that would have provided Newcastle with a base for the future. Newcastle fell apart when Shearer retired not because he was gone, but because they had already been fatally weakened on the pitch by the need to accommodate him.

 

And now this. After months of febrile speculation about how much Shearer wanted the Newcastle job - not his fault, but he could probably have stopped those "friends" from telling the press about his ambitions - Sam Allardyce finally vacated the seat, the great hero of the Geordie Nation having seen him off as well. Surely, at last, Shearer would have the courage of his convictions and make his case. But still, no official comment from the great man; just the mutterings about how he's nobody's No2 (despite still not having completed his Uefa Pro Licence, theoretically necessary for all Premier League managers, more than 18 months after retiring), except possibly Keegan's.

 

I wouldn't give a toss about all this were Shearer open about his ambitions. But he's not, is he? His behaviour over the course of this season has been, frankly, cowardly and cruel. He allowed Sam Allardyce to be hung out to dry in his name, without ever saying a word about his own intentions or feelings. He's displayed breathtaking arrogance in his apparent belief that he has nothing to learn from any more experienced managers. And his failure to discuss any of this in any meaningful way has displayed incredible contempt for his employer, the BBC, and Newcastle's fans. And still he is fawned over. It's baffling beyond belief.

 

Alan Shearer was a great, great footballer. If only he were as much of a man.

 

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/01/16/black_widow_shearer_answerable.html

[johnnypd]

[NG32]

Poor article, basically an attack on Shearer.

[EthiGeordie]

      Guys I like Shearer but right now we need lean break and we need a continental manager who brings us different approch. Lets try something different and new and we will see how we end up on that.

[brummie]

Well written, but how much truth?

 

Genuine question - I've no idea. Where are the assumptions / untruths in it?

 

(I mean the Black Widow article quoted a few posts above)

[johnnypd]

Well written, but how much truth?

 

Genuine question - I've no idea. Where are the assumptions / untruths in it?

 

(I mean the Black Widow article quoted a few posts above)

 

maybe it's just bad timing but shearer's came out today in an interview and said he would like the job, and would also be open to offers of being an assistant manager. so i guess we can safely assume that MIchael Hann will tomorrow write an article saying he now "doesn't give a toss" and that he was wrong.

 

the ruud gullit thing, the journalist said he was sacked, but he actually resigned. people forget we were 2nd bottom of the league then too, and he had fell out with half the squad (ferguson and lee were dropped too) not just shearer, and the fact he played paul robinson (last seen playing for horden colliery welfare) and silvio maric up front instead of shearer-ferguson because of pettiness, and a worse partnership you will struggle to find in the history of NUFC.

 

about robson, there's no evidence that he forced robson out, in fact shearer remains good friends with SBR. i think there is a case of him having a bit too much influence, and the team having to accomodate him as he declined, but that is down to shepherd's deification of the man, not down to shearer himself. as for shearer wanting the job then, well apparently shepherd offered it to him but shearer turned it down. he could've probably walked into the job when roeder was appointed but again, went to do MOTD. hardly the actions of someone craving the job. likewise under allardyce, shearer said he deliberately stayed away from SJP during the arsenal match as he didn't want the press to exploit his presence if something went wrong. hardly cruel or cowardly, more sensible and diplomatic.

[Guest bluegeordie]

Imo that blog post from The Guardian is well wide of the mark (and yes, that wording is a joke). Honestly though, on the basis of a pseudo ITK chain of events (which someone like SBR, who is actually ITK, would contest on virtually every detail), it makes Shearer a scapegoat for just about everything that's gone wrong with our club over the past decade or so. Shearer is somehow responsible for Big Sam's demise? Give me a break - Sam spent half a season showing us nothing but clueless, incompetent, and negative football, which produced a long series of awful results, and even worse performances. If Sam had been up to the job, then the supposed "ghost of Shearer" would have disappeared without trace. But Sam wasn't up to the job, and so Shearer's name was raised, along with countless others, in the search for a replacement. 

 

As for Shearer's comments in The Sun, tbh I have no real problem with them. Imo he's not holding a gun to Ashley and Mort's heads. Rather as a life-long supporter and long-term servant of the club, he's simply stating what he believes he's capable of doing to take The Toon forward, and he's not alone in thinking that, as many supporters, ex-players, Harry Redknapp, and SBR obviously feel the same way. If Ashley and Mort decide Al's not the one for them, then so be it, but I don't see why Al should sit back in silence while they strive to appoint the likes of Redknapp or God knows who. As for potential managers being scared away by the possible future significance of Al's comments, I say bollocks - if they don't have the balls to deal with his alleged "ghost" then they don't have the balls to do the job that's required here.

 

I think a case worth taking seriously (although certainly not a foolproof case) can be made for appointing Shearer, but I've typed enough for now and will only go on to say more if anyone's actually interested in reading it - I know I'm prone to waffling on interminably.