Shearer backs Carroll.

Posted on July 23rd, 2010 | 58 Comments |

Shearer - Legend!
Shearer - Legend!
As Newcastle legends go, Alan Shearer is up there with the best of them, and he is arguably the best English striker I have ever witnessed personally.

He wasn’t very skillful as a striker, he wasn’t even really that quick, but he didn’t half have a knack of finding the back of the net!

The famous Newcastle number 9 shirt has been passed on from one Geordie to another, with a Nigerian inbetween, as Andy Carroll gets the chance to become the latest local hero.

Alan Shearer has given his backing to the new number 9 and believes he has the mental toughness to take on the role, and that is something our former captain, current all-time record goalscorer and former manager, albeit briefly, has in spades.

“There are a few people who would have shied away from it over the years,” Shearer told The Journal. “But he’s shown some courage to take it. He’s a Geordie lad, and he’s got to enjoy it. I’m pleased for him.”

Whether or not Carroll should or shouldn’t have been given Carroll the number nine shirt has been a hotly debated topic amongst fans. My own view is that there is no harm in giving it to him as we are unlikely to sign anyone ‘worthy’ of it, and by ‘worthy’ I mean a player who has a proven Premier League goalscoring pedigree.

Now Carroll has been given the shirt it’s up to him to prove he is ‘worthy’ of it. At the moment Carroll is only a Championship proven goalscorer with potential. The next step for him is realising that potential and proving he can score goals in the Premier League. To do that though he will need service, from more than one area, which is something Shearer also believes.

“What will be important will be the service they get to him, and I see Wayne Routledge as a main figure in that respect. Hopefully, Wayne’s really settled in, and will have a good season in the Premier League. He’s done well so far.”

“They won’t create so many chances as last year, so the chances that do come along, they have to make the most of.”

Wise words from Shearer which kind of highlights another one of the issues I believe we have with the squad – lack of depth. Routledge has been on fire since he arrived on Tyneside, and from his performance against Carlisle the other day it looks as though he is picking up where he left off. But what happens if/when we lose him through injury? The same applies to Jonas Gutierrez, who will cover either of them?

Still, Hughton is still looking in the transfer market for two or three players apparently and I hope that one of them is capable of covering on either wing. Peter Whittingham wouldn’t be a bad move…

Hint hint!

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NUFCBlog Author: toonsy toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.

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58 Responses

  1. I slightly disagree with you Toonsy about Shearers lack of skill I thought he was second only to Beckham when it came to crossing a ball he certainly wasn’t a one trick pony.

  2. Carroll reminds me so much of Duncan Ferguson in playing style, he has the ability to go all the way to the top providing he can sort himself out. Im betting he will score double figures this season.

  3. Mick G – Aye, his crossing was immense. By skillfull though I meant like Tino skill, the ability to jink past a man etc.

    Essentially Shearer was a no frills forward who scored goals. He had other fantastic bits of his play, but essentially he was there to put the ball in the net, and that is what he did, a lot :)

  4. yup shearer cud hold a ball up shoot cross head lyk no otha thats all skill..if u sed he had no trickz id agree bcoz nt once did i eva c him do a trick lol..as 4 carroll has wat it takez certainly 2 make the grade but wonda if smeone cud teach him 2 run abit faster

  5. Just realised, since Ferdinand there’s been a nice “Toon Toon” pattern with our choice of number 9’s.

    Ferdinand, Shearer, Martins, Carroll.

    See if you can work it out ;)

  6. Toonsy – there’s still hope that Cleverly’s on his way – he could cover RW and if Jonas is out Routledge can move over. Still I agree . . .too thin in some positions and too many options in others.

  7. Toon Chicken Toon Chicken says:
    July 23, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    Just realised, since Ferdinand there’s been a nice “Toon Toon” pattern with our choice of number 9’s.

    Ferdinand, Shearer, Martins, Carroll.

    See if you can work it out ;)
    —————————————–
    Black then White TC :)

  8. Shearer was the most complete centre forward ive ever seen live.

    Headers, Volleys, Tap ins, 30 yarders, free kicks, penalties, His hold up play was top quality, he was a good link player with people running from midfield or flicking balls on for his strike partner, His Crossing was as good as most international wingers.

    A shame people have forgotten that because of 8 games with a group of spineless twats at the arse end of a woeful season…

  9. One thing Carroll and shearer have in common is that they are both Geordies and both bleed black and white . I think Carroll is up for the fight in the premiership and will scare a lot of defenders but i don’t think he will be as prolific as shearer was goal wise , what he will do is provide a lot for whoever his sidekick is , 15-20 goals per season and a load of assists . The lad is a true old fashioned English centre forward that can hold the ball up and provide knock ons for his team mates .

  10. CC – -well said

    I bet anyone who supports the Toon can not help but crack a smile when they think about Shearer’s. In years to come kids will be in awe when u say aye I was there when Shearer was. The fact that he was one of our own as well is pure magic

  11. Totally agree CC I think because his goalscoring record was so good the rest of his play was underrated andlike most of you he is easily the best I’ve seen and I’ve been watching football for over 50 years and CC don’t let those who judge his lifes achievements over “8 games” get you down they no nothing.

  12. Aye Tino – got it in one :)

    Wonder who it’ll be next? Mario Balotelli??? ;)

  13. I fancy a change. We should go for an oompa-loompa. Bit of green and orange up front :lol:

  14. From last page. Reply to stuart79. I agree they will get less chances, but all i’m saying is if you look at most teams who we will be competing with – Bolton,birmingham,blackpool,stoke,fulham,west brom,sunderland,wigan and wolves maybe even west ham but i think they’ll do well this year. I would rather have our sides over all of theirs. I’d have a couple of players from each side but they are not really any better. People on here seem to forgot you don’t play man u and chelsea every week. We must realise we are playing basically in the premiership second division. The top eight are away at the moment but that’s either through investment (Chelse,man city,tottenham)Or being given time to get a team together (Everton,villa). Just relax add players over time and watch as we gradually catch and breack into the top lot of sides.

  15. Who next?
    Ranger, when Carroll ends up in prison…
    Airey when Ranger ends up in prison.

  16. Rorycn says:
    July 23, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    What by just buying babies?

    Villa have spent a fortune and Everton never invest in young players, they buy reconised PL quality players.

    I’m all for buying young kids but fck me, we cannot run an entire football club and team on that basis!

  17. I think Carroll and Ranger could be a great partnership for many years. I know they are both big men but it would be similar to Shearer and Sir Les in a way.

    And Vuckic like Beardsley on steroids.

  18. mick g

    It winds me up there was a piece on a week or so back, Mocking Al being lined up as a coach with the england squad, Because he didnt get a reaction out of the side before the relegation, Unlike Hughton who got them promoted…

    Neatly forgetting that under Hughton and Calderwood
    (who were being called the chuckle brothers) we had 9 games in the relegation season, Losing home matches to Hull, and Blackburn, Bolton away and drawing with Hull again away and under CH we won one the same as Shearer who had much harder fixtures.

    The Hull home match relegated us and i will believe that until i die because we gave Hull the confidence to get on a run of wins where they took about a dozen points, Had we won or drawn that match they would have been relegated before Christmas.

  19. carroll will need service,but will he get it?it’s debatable to say the least.

  20. Just a random Question here~~~~

    Do you think Wayne Rooney has what it takes to overtake Alan shearer as the league top goal scorer???

    Cause Rooney ish only 24yrs old now,which is still young.

  21. AOD – In a word, yes.

    8 seasons averaging 20 league goals would do it. It wont be easy, but if he continues to score goals like he did last season then he can definately do it.

  22. no chance ! sorry but he has to score 26 goals a season for the next 10 seasons to catch him.he would be 34 by then. him being so fat he will be finsied as a footballer before he is 30.and that if he stays fit.

  23. does anyone else think the approach of ashley et al,leads to the conclusion that this season is another fly by the seat of their pants and hope for the best.
    the way they are setting it up,it is a though they are expecting to go back down.signing the players we have,it looks like we are now west bromed up,where if we go down,the plodders we have wont leave,and form the basis of the squad that will challenge for the fizzy again.
    cash in on collocini,jonas,maybe taylor,parachute payments,ashley saves money again by cutting matchday staff,guaranteed crowds of over 30,000,jobs a good’un.
    get promoted the following season tell the fans the clubs skint after relegation and repeat the process again,this little scam he’s got going on,if it is that,i’m just playing devil’s advocate,could go on for years.it does seem a bit dodgy.

  24. Well,i can’t find a exact record of how many league goals rooney scored till now,but if i rmb correctly,Shearer scored his 200th goal at age 31.hmmmm.

    Just being bored,so i wanna do a calculation on any potential player who can overtake Shearer.

    Well,as long as Rooney stays at Man Utd till he retire,i guess there will be a strong possibility of him.

  25. CC I agree after the Hull match for whatever reason, and there were plenty, the belief and confidence went out of some of the players and other players could see the writing on the wall couldn’t give a sh*t and started thinking about the next club they would be playing for.

  26. Typical Asim, talking complete bollox!

    Any chance you can go and swim with crocodiles for a while?

    What a moby!

  27. TROJAN – OR, Hughton actually believes that the players are good enough to stop up wihout too much changing about? Perhaps he has relayed that back to Ashley who trusts Hughton and his judgement?

    Who knows, just playing devils advocate.

    End of the day, whatever happend and however much is cut, it won’t negate a drop of some £50 million in revenue it would cost by being relegated again.

  28. Toonsy, in the last article (I think) you posted something you had posted on another site, where you said you were surprised Ashley was taking risks, and gambling.

    You couldn’t be that shocked by that surely? They are literally his favourite tactics! Strangely though, he appears to be quite good at it, given his previous successes in business. Let’s hope he pulls it off this time like, I have a feeling that he will. Can’t see anything major in the near future mind, but I reckon he’ll get us there or certainly lay a good foundation for a new owner, whoever and whenever that happens.

  29. Big Dave – Two key words;

    “who” and “knows”

    None of us do. None of us know what has gone on behind closed doors and are just feeding off the perception, speculation and gossip.

  30. I fully salute Chris Hughton for the way he’s working with what he has and managing to bring in players like Gosling is testament to his potential ability as a manager but Ashley’s gambling still annoys the hell out of me like. We can’t afford to be cutting corners or hoping this or that will come good in our first season back. My optimism took a bit of a kick in the knackers this morning like after I read Hughtons quotes about the amount of cash available. I’ve sort of been hoping a 6-8mil striker will appear before the season starts but i’m now thinking we’ll be lumping it up to Carroll and hoping he continues his form from last season.
    I said last night I have full faith in Carroll continuing on the way he left off but we can’t depend on him entirely and not having a plan B wont do us any good.

  31. stuart 79 says everton and villa buy quality reconised pl players, so what about tim cahill bought from millwall, beckford bought from leeds, ashly young bought from watford, phil jagielka bought from sheff utd, lescott bought from wolves, dan gosling bought from plymouth all of these were championship or league 1 one players its bout seeing can make n lets hav faith in some of our players instead of slagging every chance we get, n what bout the fact that we have players with over 2000 games of pl exp, we hav a better sqaud than bolton,blackburn,wolves,blackpool,wba,sunderland,wigan,fulham,birmingham,stoke so wots the worry these are the teams we need to beat we aint playing chelsea every week

  32. this time last year no one knew what was happening but we hav a very good manager the sqaud is happy confident n everyone in the sqaud has got the bit between there teeth wanting to prove all the ppl that say there not good enough wrong n prove that they are n i fink they r good enough

  33. davy i fully understand what you’re saying mate, but determination only gets you so far. You can have the “we’ll make sure we score one more than you” attitude, but if you’ve got nee one to put the ball in the net you’re a bit stumped.

  34. ross carroll is gonna cause teams alot of problems i honestly fink well b ok and some of r players r gonna prove ppl wrong, id like to c us add de guzman n cleverly to the sqaud n i really am expecting big things off vukic seen play alot n the kid is the real deal, id still fink erdling or someone will b signed, doubt it will happen but xisco has apperantly impressed since he came bk if could turn up b like a new signing

  35. Davy – I hope yer right I really do. Just think a man sorry an ameba like MA who has just reported nearly a ten fold increase in profit from Chav’s Direct might want to protect his other investment by spending some money on some players that would give a better chance of statying up but hey thats just normal thinking somthing that appears to be outside of MA capabilities

  36. the difference between us n other teams that get promoted is we got promoted with a premier league sqaud so on step ahead, like i keep saying we aint playing chelsea every week

  37. Seems like people have forgotten about lovelypants, he and Carroll did well last year as a pairing. I think with a bit more from Barton we might just have a fairly compotent team.

  38. id be happy with a stricker and LB,thats what we need not more mid fielders..mullet got any info m8

  39. Hitman – I would go for someone like van aanholt, who can cover LB and LW.

    A player that could cover two or more positions has to be the “value for money” the club are looking for, surely?

  40. Aye i’d like Van the man back on loan.Pretty sure the Drenthe rumour was just paper talk and far too good to be true, along with the Ben Arfa rumour. A striker and cover for the left side will do. We have plenty of CM’s. There’ll always be that craving for a bit of creativity in the midfield but for me Vuckic has shown the potential thus far to fill that role brilliantly given the chance. Play him in behind the strikers in a diamond perhaps.

  41. Lads is Van aanholt not named in Chelskis senior squad as if he is I cant see us getting him, even if we had the money for him.
    Thats one of the position I cant understand why we still havent went out and bought a good player to give competion to Jose.
    As Hitman says there is not need to get more midfielders when we allready have more than enough

  42. Waddles Mullet
    WTF is all this crud re Hatem Ben arfa?? It is a pipe dream man Mullet lad…..
    More chnace of waddles mullet putting in an appearance against the toon…………….

  43. Ross I honestly cant see Vuckic getting much more than a few cameo roles we have Jonas and Routledge that IMO have to play to make things work, then you have Nolan, Barton and Smith which 99% of the time CH will pick 2 of them, young Guthrie will be lucky to get a few games never mind Vuckic

  44. davy says:
    July 23, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    How many of the afore mentioned Everton examples were kids? One? Gosling?

    Villa paid £13m for Young – Big difference!

  45. Sorry, I’m a bit late on this debate, but howay man, mentioning Shearer and Carrol in the same breath is nonesense. Shearer is a legend and will never be bettered, great striker, scored great goals for fun, amazing for a short-arse as centre forwards go, England legend too. Carrol has all the potential to be a great striker, hard as nails and strong as a horse. I hope the lad also comes good.