Newcastle 3 Middlesbrough 1: Shearer pulls a masterstroke as manager's super subs clinch vital win

12 May 2009 00:05
Two substitutions, two goals and the reason, perhaps, why Alan Shearer is so keen to remain as Newcastle's manager. He would appear to find it rather easy. He certainly made it look easy last night, the decision to send on Peter Lovenkrands and then Obafemi Martins amounting to something of a managerial masterstroke. Never had Super Al seemed quite so super. The Geordie nation's very own special one. Rarely, if ever, has Shearer celebrated the way he did at the end of this utterly absorbing encounter. Not during all those years as Newcastle's No 9. Not even en route to that Euro 96 semi-final he contested as a team-mate of the man standing to his left here at St James'. This, he had said, was the biggest game of his career and boy did it look like it. Super sub: Substitute Obafemi Martins saves the day for Shearer, striking the winner beyond Boro's Brad Jones just seconds after replacing Michael Owen He had to endure a rollercoaster of emotions prior to the glorious intervention of the man now wearing his old Newcastle shirt.

Source: Daily_Mail