Alan Shearer Blackburn
Warren Barton has revealed how Alan Shearer showed his ruthless side in an 8-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday back in 1999. . Newcastle hadn’t won in the Premier League all season but incredibly found themselves 6-0 up. Robinson was brought on to replace Kieron Dyer and won a penalty to move the Magpies 8-0 ahead. Robinson asked Shearer, who had four goals to his name in the game already, if he could take the penalty.
Warren Barton said “You are talking about someone who loves goals in Alan. We are at home to Sheffield Wednesday and Ruud Gullit has gone, he has been sacked after the defeat to Sunderland and he has gone back to Holland. Sir Bobby Robson came in, Alan’s back in the line-up against Sheffield Wednesday. Bobby came in on Thursday, had a little meeting and said: ‘Alan, you are going to score goals,’ blah blah blah. Anyway, Paul Robinson had been given the opportunity after starting against Sunderland instead of Alan and Duncah Ferguson. I don’t know how it happened but we are playing Sheffield Wednesday and we are winning 6-0 by the 70th minute. Sir Bobby has waved his magic wand. Paul Robinson gets substituted in and a couple of minutes later he won a penalty. ‘Big Al’ already has four goals having been dropped the week before by Ruud and now we have a penalty. Paul Robinson grabbed the ball after he won the penalty. He is from Darlington, he has 25 of his family members in the stadium all wanting him to score a goal, and has gone up to Al to ask if he can take the penalty. Alan’s choice words were f**k off. He took the ball off him, put the ball down and smashed it in the top corner. Alan has five goals and Paul Robinson went up to him to celebrate and Alan said: ‘Don’t ever f*****g ask that again’. Paul is deflated. He got dropped for Alan, came on when we were winning 6-0 in front of 25 of his family members and Alan had already scored four goals, told him to eff off and then had the audacity to tell him to never do that again. That was the last we saw of Paul Robinson and Alan went on to score 260 goals and that was the end of that.”
When asked how Shearer compared to other great forwards, Barton described how ‘Big Al’ stood out from the crowd.
Warren Barton said “He was phenomenal. I was lucky enough to play with Les Ferdinand and people ask me what was the difference between them. Les was quicker and better in the air but Alan was ruthless in front of goal. Me, Nobby Solano and Gary Speed would finish training and Alan would ask where we were going because he wanted to do some extra crossing and extra finishing. Even when he got to 190 and 200 goals he was the same. Ian Rush said he wasn’t the best finisher in the world but he was the best goalscorer in the world. It was all self-driven and it is only afterwards when you think about things that you realise that I took it for granted being around players like that for six to seven years. He was different to Les Ferdinand, Robbie Fowler, Teddy Sheringham. He was a monster.”
Newcastle United had just sacked Ruud Gullit and Sir Bobby Robson had arrived as his replacement in the St James’ Park hotseat. Gullit, of course, had dropped Shearer and Duncan Ferguson for the infamous 2-1 Tyne-Wear derby defeat against Sunderland which ultimately cost the Dutchman his job. Shearer’s replacement that day was young forward Paul Robinson who had joined the club from Darlington. Robson wasted little time in restoring Shearer to the line-up and Robinson dropped to the bench
