Alan Shearer is a legend on Tyneside, and rightly so. But let's take a reality check here ... the big man insists at this time he has "no interest at all in the manager's job at Newcastle, I am happy watching from the stands".


Yet his presence looms big at St James' Park, just as Ruud Gullit said it did back in 1999. And that shadow seems to frighten the life out of anyone who takes the hot seat in the manager's office.

And today we read: "Sam Allardyce last night admitted he expects to be replaced as Newcastle manager by Alan Shearer".