No place for a novice: Shearer learns the hard way

Alan Shearer may not keep Newcastle in the top-flight, but perhaps the one thing he will achieve is to finally convince club chairmen that The Premier League, like Downing Street, is no place for a novice.

One has to feel some admiration for Shearer and his decision to prise himself from the cosy MOTD sofa for the grubby reality of a relegation battle. But in his short time in charge, Shearer has completely failed to galvanise The Magpies into any sort of attacking unit, has had public rows with two of his better players and shown himself to be naïve when it comes to tactics.

His decision to deploy a three-pronged strike force of Michael Owen, Mark Viduka and Obafemi Martins was a simplistic attempt to replicate a ploy which worked for Kevin Keegan at the back end of last season. One year on, with all three a long way from full fitness after injury-plagued seasons, the strategy was totally ill-conceived. Watching the toiling trio getting in each others’ way as Newcastle struggled in vain for a goal against Portsmouth was one of the more desperate sights of the season.

A week later at Anfield, Owen was dropped to the bench to make way for Joey Barton. But the decision to retain a front three, with Martins and Peter Lovenkrands offering little cover to the fullbacks, still left Newcastle’s defence cruelly exposed. Meanwhile, Shearer’s body language on the touchline looked more that of a fan than a manager, his frustrations at his players’ inadequacies all too apparent, suggesting that he’s yet to acquire that air of cool detachment required to make decisions which can change the outcome of a match.

While Barton’s actions during and after the game were indefensible, Shearer’s decision to hang him out to dry, just as he did Martins when he declared himself injured on the day of the Stoke match, was surely ill-judged. Perhaps Shearer’s media background is working against him. For by answering every question and discussing his rifts with players, he’s actually encouraging journalists to paint a picture of a club in crisis, with a divided dressing-room, doomed to the drop. Surely the best ploy would be to keep disciplinary matters in-house, in a bid to keep everyone pulling in the same direction, with the focus on survival and nothing else.