Source: Daily_Mail
Sofa so bad for Newcastle boss Shearer as Sunderland fans see the funny side
A Mackem friend sent me and all his Geordie mates a text just minutes after Newcastle's defeat at Tottenham on Sunday.
'What's the difference between Alan Shearer and Newcastle United?
'Alan Shearer will be on Match of the Day next season.'
Sunderland supporters have enjoyed the difficulties across the Tyne this season, if only because they have endured so many equally self-inflicted in-house problems and relegation battles themselves over the last decade.
Shearer has managed just a draw and two defeats since taking over Newcastle but Sunderland were celebrating a vital win over Hull City at the weekend (below) after Djibril Cisse scored the only goal of the game
They have served so much solitary North East time in the Football League, no wonder they would like to see how Newcastle would survive the ordeal which is expensive on every level.
Not that they have much to crow about. Sunderland are still in trouble, and they are still looking over their shoulders at events on Tyneside with some trepidation, despite their win over Hull City.
Niall Quinn returned to Wearside to end all that, and his appointment of Roy Keane was shrewd at the time, but always likely to end in tears. And a mess.
It came sooner than expected and any optimism has been drained by a season of deja-vu, even with the most expensive and talented Sunderland squad ever assembled.
Suddenly the squad Peter Reid put together to finish seventh twice is appreciated more than ever.
Quinn was part of that team but has struggled to get close to replicating their achievement, although the potential is still there to match that buzz if they can survive with Ricky Sbragia in charge.
Whether he is the right man to be the manager is a question for the summer.
Sunderland fans may be enjoying Newcastle's position in the bottom three, five points adrift of them and looking at the prospect of the Championship rather than Champions League which Newcastle graced for so many seasons.
But Sunderland supporters are renowned pessimists and they have not written off Alan Shearer and his team yet.
And what better motivation could he have than seeing Sunderland replace Newcastle in the bottom three by May 24?
The arrival of Messiah Mark II brought the lift only he or Kevin Keegan could, but he was always going to struggle with the players he inherited from three managers and one director of football.
He may have only won one point in nine so far, but that is one more than most people expected before his arrival.
Sadly the club's record-breaking goalscorer is not wearing His Number Nine shirt any more, and he's clearly not sure if the current incumbent is worthy of the title at the moment.
Obafemi Martins's injuries have baffled the doctors throughout the season but his continual preference to rest his strained limbs, as he did at Stoke, rather than put them on the line for his desperate club, have inevitably led to eyebrows being raised among his team-mates.
Misfiring: Owen has been struggling
Shearer dared to speak publically and declare he knows what he would do, leaving the question of Martins' commitment to the cause to the Nigeria striker.
Coincidentally, he is fit. Shearer will have recognised Martins' popularity among supporters and, while he has bravely and rightly dropped £10million defender Fabricio Coloccini, he knows he cannot afford to punish his second-top scorer by leaving him to stew on the bench.
Martins can only change opinions with goals. Michael Owen is top scorer with eight, but he has yet to add to that total since his latest return from injury five games ago.
That is a long time, even by his standards, but I can recall just one shot in those games, and that was a deflected shinner which trundled over the line against Chelsea but was then ruled out by a dim linesman.
It seems unthinkable and unlikely that Shearer would even contemplate dropping his friend and former strike partner.
Shearer knows Owen cannot have lost his natural goalscoring instinct, no matter how difficult this season has been.
If he believes that, he just needs to pick a team that will get Owen closer to goal.
He could be tempted to restore the Owen-Viduka-Martins axis which withdraws Owen behind the front two.
It worked so well under Kevin Keegan a year ago, Newcastle powered to safety with room to spare.
Shearer has referred to it many times since he took over but Newcastle are supposed to be 4-4-2 and all three have been unreliable for too long.
Add Andy Carroll and Shola Ameobi to the selection and you try to pick two guaranteed to get goals. Over to you gaffer.
Shearer's reign was always going to be measured on the three home games with Portsmouth, Middlesbrough and Fulham, three difficult but winnable games; Portsmouth thrashed Newcastle at St James' Park last season, Boro always seem to draw on derby days, and Fulham are much tougher on their travels than earlier in the season.
As a player, he only ever knew St James' as a fortress, so he will go into those three key games expecting nine points. (By my reckoning, Sunderland, incidentally, might be lucky to win just one more game, which would leave them a point behind on 38).
Now he just has to pick the right team, which is no easy task when so many have under-performed so alarmingly all season.
His first move will be to ditch the five-man defence which was installed for difficult away days to make up for the loss of the club's only left back Jose Enrique, a farcical situation, which Shearer, as its victim, probably still can't comprehend.
The team can carry Damien Duff there on home territory and restore steel to the rest of the back four with Sebastian Bassong, Steven Taylor and Habib Beye in the familiar positions.
Jonas Gutierrez is inconsistent but unpredictable while Danny Guthrie and Alan Smith are chomping at the bit to play.
Nicky Butt is guaranteed a start and Shearer will be inclined to persevere with Kevin Nolan in the hope that he will at last rediscover a modicum of the influence which made him such a crucial cog in feisty Bolton teams.
Nolan has been a disappointment, and he knows it. But he is not alone in this squad and Shearer knew that when he was watching this horror season unfold from the comfort of the TV sofa.
On Sunday night he will sit with his notepad at home and will pick the team to decide Newcastle's destiny.
Shearer and his players know they have five games to put things right. And three at home where they cannot get it wrong.
