Alan Shearer is an uninspiring pundit, what makes people think he'll be any better as a manager?

[Happy Face 29]

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/12/...e_how_to_a.html

 

The English and Irish Football Associations are bracing themselves for a flood of job applications from unexpected sources after Howard Kendall's redefinition of the qualifications necessary to be an international manager. Kendall has been touting for the Republic of Ireland post, insisting that almost a decade out of management does not make him yesterday's man. 'I am in touch with the modern game,' he claimed. 'I write a column in the local paper and I go and watch Premier League football every week.'

 

Practically every newspaper has a columnist who can touch those bases, including this one. Admittedly I have no record in club management and cannot claim to have coached Everton to glittering success at home and abroad, but, with all due respect, in his last two spells at Goodison neither can Kendall.

 

Fair play to Kendall, though. He has let us know where he stands and good luck to him. At least he has a distinguished, if dusty, coaching pedigree, which was good enough to put him in the frame for the England job when he was at his peak. All we know about Alan Shearer is that he is taking his coaching badges and appearing regularly on television. He has never managed a team in his life, yet somehow managed to feature on England shortlists as well as being regarded as a nailed-on certainty to be the next Newcastle manager.

 

England would be mad to employ a novice manager when they face another challenging qualification group, though Geordies might well enjoy having a local hero running their club. If Newcastle are aiming to replicate the feelgood factor from the Kevin Keegan era they could do a lot worse than take a gamble on a favourite son who would be instantly popular. But the rest of a baffled country is asking one simple question: Why?

 

Shearer the player was far from universally loved outside the North-East, especially towards the end of his career when he had to make up for lost pace with low cunning. Shearer the pundit isn't even that good. He simply hasn't said anything yet, unless you count last Saturday's piercing insight into the psyche of clubs awaiting the following day's third round FA Cup draw. 'They'll all be hoping for decent draws,' he said. Only Jonathan Ross gets paid more BBC money for smirking to camera, though at least Wossy works hard and is actually quite good at around a dozen of his jobs.

 

When Alan Hansen first appeared as a Match of the Day analyst he made an instant and positive impression. It was clear the BBC had done their homework and found someone who could not only offer a professional's point of view but communicate it succinctly and articulately. So forensic were Hansen's contributions, so simple yet damning his assessments, that people quickly began to ask had he never thought of becoming a manager himself. The answer was yes, he had thought about it, but had come to the conclusion a media career would be more secure, less pressured and longer lasting. That was before he knew about the Morrisons ads, obviously.

 

No one has been asking Shearer the same questions and, even if they did, they probably wouldn't be answered. Despite sitting in a studio to discuss football every week, he has so far avoided straying beyond the blindingly obvious and has never ruled himself in or out of any managerial positions. How he became linked to the England job is a mystery, unless there was a secret competition to find someone capable of saying less than Steve McClaren. Actually, there is a plausible theory that the story was launched by Mark Lawrenson in a desperate bid to get his Match of the Day chair back. At the moment we are treating this as an amusing but unsubstantiated rumour.

 

Speculation linking Shearer to St James' Park is more understandable and has been following him and the past three Newcastle managers for a while. As always, Shearer smiles and moves on, leaving the BBC with a Newcastle manager who won't talk to them and a Newcastle manager-in-waiting who will, but not about Newcastle.

 

The Toon Army might see this quite differently, but what Shearer has achieved in the past few weeks is the not inconsiderable feat of making the rest of the country feel sorry for Sam Allardyce. Newcastle were only playing Bolton's old up-and-at-'em game on Wednesday night, a fearfully primitive way to greet Arsenal's cerebral stylists, yet one had the feeling neutrals everywhere were rooting for them. Everyone knows Allardyce is not as thick-skinned as he appears - no one could be - and the famous English sense of fair play had been stirred. Ugly football or not, no one deserves to have to stand on a touchline getting quizzical looks from his players, polite smiles from the owner and sustained abuse from the fans, while the heir apparent remains non-committal in a television studio.

 

At least the Newcastle players showed their solidarity with Allardyce in fighting back against Arsenal. The first thing St James' Park should be is a fortress and Allardyce can probably manage that. If the owner Mike Ashley means it when he says he deserves more time, and is not just mouthing empty rhetoric, the pride, passion and good times could all be back sooner than anyone expected.

 

The Shearer story is not going to go away. The likelihood is that it will crop up every time Newcastle drop silly points or fail to live up to expectation, which is to say, again and again and again - which is why they appointed Allardyce in the first place. He does what it says on the tin. Now they want to take a leap of faith with someone who does what it says on the autocue.

 

Allardyce does not deserve this, but when the inevitable happens his only way out may be to call off his feud with the BBC and offer a job swop with Shearer. The latter gets to sort Newcastle out while Big Sam shows off his selection of waistcoats and raised-eyebrow expressions by way of a commentary in the MOTD studio. A far more entertaining prospect than the present arrangement, I'm sure you'll agree.

[RlCO 0]

The problem is exactly that, this club will never move forward until Shearer manages and the ghosts of Keegan and Beardo are exhorsised. I feel for Shearer, because he will never ever be allowed to manage a small club and get on with gaining experience, before he is pulled to this managerial graveyard.

[LeazesMag 0]

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