Shearer says talks with Cardiff were "unsucessful" - Sky News

[wormy]

The search function on here is shite. Anyway, someone was asking the other day if shearer and Owen were still mates after the way things finished with them both here. Well the pair of them were both shown on channel 4 at York races, not together though.

 

Fantastic.

[Yorkie]

I would hope that Shearer detests him as much as every other Newcastle supporter.

[Colocho]

Shearer: Newcastle must spend £10million this summer just to stand still

 

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Newcastle-Alan-Shearer-admits-club-exceeded-his-expectations-this-season-but-warned-they-must-spend-10million-on-new-signings-this-summer-to-avoid-a-relegation-battle-12-months-from-now-article734246.html

[EthiGeordie]

The former England striker on his dark days at Newcastle and why the experience has not dampened his desire to get back into management

 

Alan Shearer wants to return to management but says he is 'not desperate to go in at a club that’s got nothing and where I’m peeing against the wind'. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian

Paul Hayward

The Observer, Sun 15 May 2011 00.07 BST

Two years ago this month Alan Shearer waited for the nod that would confirm him as Newcastle United's permanent manager. After eight games in charge and relegation to the Championship, Tyneside's local hero had fallen in love with the role and had started planning his promotion campaign.

So what went wrong? "I don't know," he says. "I'd spoken to Mike [Ashley, the owner] and Derek [Llambias, managing director] and basically everything was agreed. Then they went away to speak to the bank, for whatever reason, and we haven't spoken since. The contract was over eight games and obviously we were planning. We were basically thinking – and had been told in the meeting we'd had – that things would be moving on into next year. I'd made numerous calls to agents and players about the following season.

"We got relegated on the Sunday, then had the meeting on the Monday or Tuesday and were told they were coming back to do it all on the Thursday. But they never did. So in the end there was no point going into the office any more." This story carries echoes of an Arthur Miller play: working man is discarded, via silence, and one morning concedes the futility of driving into work.

Shearer's job passed to Chris Hughton and Newcastle shot back up to the Premier League. In BBC sofa-land, the two great England strikers of the 1980s and 1990s were reunited: Gary Lineker and "Super Al", who now balances his loyalty to the corporation with a burning urge to jump back into management.

Shearer will be in a dugout again one day. "I loved the eight weeks I had at Newcastle. I loved the problems and challenges it brought every day, but I'm also not too daft to see that the longer you're out of the game the harder it is to get back in," he says. "If the right one was to come along then, yeah, I would look at it. I'm not desperate to go in at a club that's got nothing and where I'm peeing against the wind. I'm not naive enough to say I'm not going in unless I can be a Premier League manager, I'm not that stupid. Somewhere along the line you've got to do your apprenticeship. But I'd want half a chance of being successful at it."

Conscious that he may sound picky, Shearer squints in that way he uses to convey intent and to warn people not to take liberties: a lesson he administered to countless defenders in a career of 283 league goals and 559 appearances with Southampton, Blackburn and Newcastle, plus 63 caps and 30 England goals. People who see him only on television assume he is an arch-diplomat, wary and reserved, but socially he is always full of beans, and opinions.

During our talk he argues that Lionel Messi could be the "greatest of all time" and nominates the next England manager without hesitation: "There's one outstanding candidate for that and it's Harry Redknapp. I think he has the charisma, he's English and I think he would get tremendous respect from the players. He's a very good coach and I think that job would be great for him."

He also defends his move from Blackburn back to Newcastle for a then world record transfer fee of £15m in 1996 in the most emotive terms. The alternative destination was Manchester United, who were three years away from a Premier League, European Cup and FA Cup treble, but Shearer answered the heart's call.

"I thought they [Kevin Keegan's team] were going to win things, definitely. What I had at Newcastle and what I still have is an incredible feeling, and I would say to Manchester United fans: 'Those of you in the Stretford End, it would be your dream to go and play for Man United. I stood on the Gallowgate End and it was my dream to go and play for Newcastle.'

"Some players are criticised for having no loyalty. Well, I wanted to go back home and play for the club I supported. I don't think that's a crime. Regrets? None at all. It was everything I hoped it would be and a hell of a lot more. I didn't win any trophies with Newcastle but what I had then and what I have now makes up for that."

The ardour of this response leaves no doubt about Shearer's fidelity to Newcastle, where he thought a chance had come to repeat his triumphs as a classic Geordie/English centre-forward. With his alma mater imperilled, he took over on 4 April 2009, for the visit of Chelsea – Newcastle's opponents at Stamford Bridge on Sunday – and lost the game 2-0. In the next seven matches he endeavoured to correct a shambolic first-team culture.

Draws against Stoke and Portsmouth and a 3-1 win over Middlesbrough were insufficient to lift the team above 18th place and soon they were turning out at Plymouth and Doncaster.

But Shearer wants more of it: "You get faced with a different task every day as a problem is thrown at you. Someone's late – how do you deal with it, do you upset him or do you upset the group? You try to instil some discipline. Someone asks for permission to go somewhere [London, usually]. It's all the little things. What do you decide to wear on the match day? When do you decide to go to the hotels? You're asked different questions every day and I loved it. It was great.

"I enjoyed picking the team. The tough side was that I'd played with half the side and knew them individually. I had to leave players out who were mates of mine." This is a reference to Michael Owen, his close friend, who was dropped for a 3-0 defeat at Anfield. "Yeah, I left Michael out at Liverpool, but I did it the right and proper way – if there is one.

"I got him in the office two days beforehand and told him what I was thinking of doing. He didn't agree with it, but he went along with it, professionally. At least he didn't read it on a team-sheet – as I had to find out once." Shearer's burst of laughter here recalls Ruud Gullit's infamous team-sheet "suicide note", as it was called at the time, when he left his star player on the bench for the north-east derby with Sunderland.

Decadent would be a polite description of parts of the Newcastle squad he found himself trying to save: players not exactly busting a gut to play, or even to be on time. "I'd heard about one or two problems prior to going in. But it was a really, really difficult situation. I'm pretty positive that if I'd been given longer than eight games I could have done something. I learned a great deal. It's one thing saying managers work hard but it's another going in there and seeing it for yourself. You appreciate how time-consuming it all is. Basically, a manager is a father figure to 20 or 25 blokes. It's about trying to get the best out of them and creating team spirit."

In his own barnstorming days as a modern Jackie Milburn or Hughie Gallacher, Shearer required no guidance in the art of physical subjugation, and a striker he managed briefly (and who scored for him, against Stoke) has now taken up the tradition. Of Liverpool's Andy Carroll, Shearer says: "He's a beast to play against. I can truly appreciate that he'd be a nightmare for defenders. If you get the right ball in to him then he's probably unplayable. He is like big Duncan Ferguson and he will scare people. I know he's relatively young but he doesn't mind a battle and upsetting and having a fight with defenders. He can look after himself.

"He's got good feet and he's very quick for the size of him. He's got a good touch and a rocket of a left foot. Potentially, he's very, very good. I got on great with him when I was there for the eight weeks. I found him to be a lad who just wanted to play, train, work. I had to drag him off the training ground at times. I don't know what he's doing differently training wise at Liverpool but you can rest assured he's in great hands with Kenny [Dalglish] and he's at a great football club."

But in case anyone should think Shearer likes the macho types best his eulogy to Messi confirms an appreciation of the game's more subtle arts: "Cristiano Ronaldo went for £80m but Messi would smash that. I would go as far as to say he could be the best ever – maybe even now, on the basis of what he's continually doing. What did he get last year – 49 or 50 goals? And he's got 52 this year. He makes world-class defenders look like park players, week in, week out. And he's 23. Scary.

"He's doing it in the Champions League. He's a little genius, he is. Incredible. He plays every game. I don't know whether he's got something in his contract where he has to play every time – but he does. I'm sure sometimes the manager would like to rest him. The way he plays, he's playing with his mates on a Sunday morning, with no fear. I love that about him."

For now all this is delivered from the sidelines, until a good club or maybe even the England set-up come calling. After the 2006 World Cup he was contacted by Steve McClaren to discuss an England coaching role but Shearer is guarded on this subject: "I spoke to him very, very briefly. It was never a serious situation but I did speak to him." And he insists: "I don't want it to come across [in this interview] that I want to skip all the apprenticeships and go straight in at the glory end."

Nobody could have accused him of that at Newcastle, where he gambled his start in management for a regime, who, in those chaotic days, would have struggled to find "glory"

[Oakie Doke]

I just watched Luque's goal in Shearer's testimonial. What a strike. Aaah, what could have been. 

[AliGupter]

I just watched Luque's goal in Shearer's testimonial. What a strike. Aaah, what could have been. 

 

Come on man, 206 goals is OK.

[Oakie Doke]

I just watched Luque's goal in Shearer's testimonial. What a strike. Aaah, what could have been. 

 

Come on man, 206 goals is OK.

[Cronky]

Re Shearer interview -  I'm not sure his managerial career is ever going to take off. He wants an opportunity where there's a good chance of success, but also recognises that he's unlikely to get that as a novice. He wants to serve an apprenticeship, but doesn't want the risk of failure. He himself seems to recognise the incoherence of his position.

 

Underlying it all, I think he wonders whether it's worth the sacrifices that he would have to make. So he ends up stuck in a TV studio by default.

[Rob W]

and paid a fortune while having a normal life, not putting himself in line for a bomb through the post or mindless abuse and not having to listen to the likes of Ashley or FFS telling  him how to do his job while depending on the actions of 11 numpties who can't remember their own names never mind whatever tactical plan he comes up with

 

sign of sanity IMHO

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Very good interview that. I think Shearer will one day make a decent manager and I'd love to see him here sometime as our manager.

[Ronaldo]

I wouldn't.

[Guest sicko2ndbest]

I'd love him to be back in the game

 

Whoever he managed would instantly be my 2nd favourite team

[Pilko]

Very good interview that. I think Shearer will one day make a decent manager and I'd love to see him here sometime as our manager.

 

Yeah, I agree. We should have given him the chance to have a stab at keeping us up that season we went down. I'm quite confident that he'd have managed it.

[SteveMc]

Shocking the way he was treated by Ashley and Llambias.  I try and be as positive about the club and its direction but sadly there is no escaping from the fact that they are a massive pair of cunts

[SteveMc]

Very good interview that. I think Shearer will one day make a decent manager and I'd love to see him here sometime as our manager.

 

Yeah, I agree. We should have given him the chance to have a stab at keeping us up that season we went down. I'm quite confident that he'd have managed it.

 

 

Very good sir

[David28]

I wouldn't.

 

Agree. No doubt the team he got in his 8 games here was absolutely shocking, but for me there's also no doubt that he was the same.

 

Loved him as a player and that's how I'll always remember him - scoring goals for us in the number 9 shirt.

 

Maybe he'll prove me wrong at some point and still become a good manager.

[Guest ObiChrisKenobi]

Think he tried at least 3 different formations/tactics in the 8 games he was in charge, just going from memory so could be wrong.

[SteveMc]

There was that game at Spurs where it looked like the players had no idea what was going on.  Ian Dowie was deeply unpopular wasn't he?

[Dinho lad]

Think he tried at least 3 different formations/tactics in the 8 games he was in charge, just going from memory so could be wrong.

 

something which he had to do to find the best formula possible for us at the time. Had he stuck with the same tactics from day one, he would be criticised for that as well.

[Cronky]

and paid a fortune while having a normal life, not putting himself in line for a bomb through the post or mindless abuse and not having to listen to the likes of Ashley or FFS telling  him how to do his job while depending on the actions of 11 numpties who can't remember their own names never mind whatever tactical plan he comes up with

 

sign of sanity IMHO

 

Absolutely, and those are the reasons why most players decide against going in for management.

 

I just get a bit fed up with these regular messages from Shearer of 'maybe one day, but not now', which he started giving out even when he was still playing.

[M4]

If he really wanted to manage he'd have done it already. I don't think he's as interested in it as he seems to constantly say he is.

[Yorkie]

Think he tried at least 3 different formations/tactics in the 8 games he was in charge, just going from memory so could be wrong.

 

Don't blame him for that. Wasn't executed with great effect but the team needed something. Besides, he had serial relegator Iain Dowie pulling a few strings at the time too.

[wormy]

Not going to judge Shearer on his stint with us. How pissed off were we when we discovered Hughton was leading us into our Championship campaign, after his attempts in our relegation season?

 

Can't see him getting into management properly, not through lack of ability, but his own ideals as to the sort of job he wants.

[80]

Not going to judge Shearer on his stint with us.

 

Me neither, which is why I definitely don't want him coming here any time soon. That said, I was pleasantly surprised by his time here. Most of my prejudice against him stems from everything he's ever said and done before and after that time, but during it he seemed pretty bold in ripping up plans that were going wrong, which surprised me - didn't show Owen unwarranted loyalty, experimented with tactics. He seemed to be making more right moves than I expected - if he'd kept that rate up and been given a handful more games to work with I think he would have kept us up, at least.

[Ketsbaia]

He's Mr Newcastle and a god up here.....I think it's unhealthy to have that in a manager. I love Shearer but you shouldn't have an untouchable manager.