How Good Was Alan Shearer, Really?

When you think of the term prolific, who comes to mind?

Nowadays, you may associate that term with players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi. Maybe even Robert Lewandowski.

What if I were to tell you all that the man that inspired this article scored more Premier League goals than all three of these players combined?

Now you may think, “but, bro. Two of those players haven’t even played in the Premier League”. To which I will respond with; Listen. A fact is a fact.

Okay, I’m sorry about that. That’s enough of the jokes for today. We’re back to being serious again.

No jokes this time, this man was absolutely unreal during his time.

He’s not only the top goal scorer in Premier League history, but he also has the 16^th highest number of assists in Premier League history too.

However, what may shock you, is that despite all of this, over his 19-year career, he only ever won 1 major trophy.

I’m speaking of course about Alan shearer.

With all of that being said. You may have some questions on your mind. And hopefully I can help you in answering at least some of those questions in today’s article.

With all of that being said. How Good was Alan Shearer?

Table of Contents

Early Beginnings

The start of Alan Shearer’s story came in Newcastle in 1970. Named after his father, it was his old man that encouraged him to play football in his youth. Turns out he was pretty good at it. He captained his schoolboy side over several games before joining Wallsend boys club.

And while playing here, he was eventually scouted by Southampton Football club and went on to sign a youth contract with them in 1986, at 15 years of age.

Early Career and record-breaking hat-trick

He spent two years at the Southampton youth academy before making his professional debut in 1988.

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For the most part, his first taste of first team football was rather uneventful, as he only came on as a sub, in a match against Chelsea. I mean what did you expect, really? The guy was only 17 years old.

Well.

Only two weeks later, Southampton were matched up against Arsenal in the League. Unfortunately for the Saints, their first-choice striker, Danny Wallace was set to miss the match.

According to the rumour mill, a 17-year-old who had been making a bit of noise in the youth divisions and had only made 1 appearance in the league was set to be given his first start for the first team.

However, the guy was just a kid, right? The prospect of facing this guy was surely nothing to worry about, right?

If you’re shaking your head right now, you’ve got the right idea.

In his first full home debut for Southampton, Alan Shearer put 3 past the Arsenal keeper, securing a 4-2 win against gunners. In doing so, he became the youngest player to score a hat-trick in English top division history at 17 years and 240 days old, beating a record previously held by the legendary Jimmy Greaves.

To the best of my knowledge and from all I could find online, this record still stands today.

It’s also worth noting that this Arsenal team was no walk in the park either. In fact, before this match, they were on an 8-game unbeaten streak and even further to that, the very next season, they went on to win the league.

Safe to say that this was only the beginning of a truly special career for Shearer

So this is probably a good time to mention that in his youth, Shearer played as a midfielder, playing in a creative attacking role. In his early career at Southampton, he retained those creative qualities, but was pushed further up the pitch. You can probably see where I’m going with this.

At a very young, he had all the tools necessary to push on and excel. He had a good bit of pace about him, a good touch, passing ability, impressive strength and a very clear ruthless goal scoring instinct. Remember those last two, as they remained relevant just about throughout his career.

Bidding Wars and Manchester United Saga Pt 1

Fast forward to 4 years later in 1992 and Shearer was slowly turning into the finished product at just 22 years of age. Naturally when a talent like this comes around a bidding war is the most likely outcome. This case was no exception.

In fact, in the transfer window prior to the inaugural season of the Premier League, Ian Branfoot, Southampton’s manager became quite possibly, the most popular manager in English football. The reasoning for this was that absolutely everyone wanted to state their case for why they should be given the opportunity to sign Shearer. Therefore, his phone was said to be ringing nonstop.

Amongst the clubs that were vying for his signature, Manchester United, who were building a very formidable side themselves, were amongst those he was most heavily linked with.

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However, he eventually went on to join Blackburn rovers for £3.6 million, a English transfer record at the time. Although United missed out on the star man this time, this definitely wouldn’t be the last time that they tried their luck at signing him.

Blackburn Rovers in the early to mid-90s

Now it may be worthwhile to give a bit of context to this transfer, especially with regards to what was going on at Rovers at this point in time.

The story of Blackburn rovers in the early to mid-90s is quite an interesting one to say the least. That is of course, considering the fact that they haven’t featured in the Premier League since 2012, and they even dropped down into the third division in English football in 2018. They’ve since returned to the championship, but you get the point.

In any case, in 1991, Jack Walker, an incredibly wealthy businessman purchased Blackburn Rovers. For the purposes of this story, there isn’t very much that you need to know about him.

All you really need to know is that he was hell bent on making Rovers the biggest club in England, he was willing to spend absolute fortune to do it and he did not like Manchester United in the slightest.

Shortly after taking over at Rovers, they spent over £25 million only on players alone, in an attempt to realise his dream for the club.

I don’t think I need to say just how much money that was back in the day (I mean, who am I kidding it’s an enormous sum today, but still). Put in simple terms, very few clubs could compete with them on a financial front. Basically, in the early 90s, Blackburn Rovers were Chelsea before Chelsea was Chelsea.

Now that we’re all on the same page, back to the subject at hand.

Prime and Premier League Title

Alan Shearer didn’t have the most fortunate start to life at Blackburn Rovers. In his first season with the club, he snapped his ACL and was thus forced to miss out on half of the season. Despite this, he still scored 16 goals in 21 matches…

No, you heard me right. You’re not hearing things. An unreal return.

He kept the momentum going and scored 31 goals in 40 appearances the very next season. And he would’ve finished as the top scorer too. That is of course, if Andy Cole wasn’t having an unreal season himself. He unfortunately finished second in the overall goalscoring rankings. Likewise, Rovers were beaten to the Premier League title by Manchester United, also having to settle for second.

However, something was on the horizon and things were about to change, on both of those fronts.

Prior to the 1994/1995 season, Blackburn Rovers signed Chris Sutton from Norwich City and paired him up with Alan Shearer up top.

Together they formed an insanely effective striking partnership and greatly helped in leading Blackburn Rovers to their first Premier League title. Beating Manchester United by only a single point. This was the third top division title in the club’s history and their first in 81 years.

And of course, Shearer was the star of the show.

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He ended the season with 34 goals in the league, claiming the Golden Boot for the first time in his career. To this day, this remains as the joint highest amount of goals scored in a single season in Premier League history. Joint with Andy Cole, who set the record one season prior.

I guess it’s important to note that back then, each season contained 42 games, but that’s besides the point.

He also provided the third highest number of assists in the league with 13. And obviously he won the player of the season award too.

Simply put, this guy was an animal!

Unfortunately, the following season, Rovers failed to retain the Premier League title, with Manchester United returning to full strength and reclaiming the top spot. In fact, rovers slumped all the way down to 7^th place.

On the other hand, Shearer was still on top. From a personal perspective, that is.

The 1995/1996 season saw the number of games per season in the Premier League drop down to 38. Although, I guess nobody bothered to tell Shearer, as his goal scoring output barely changed. He scored 31 goals in 35 appearances. A record that’ been equalled a couple of times, but was only broken in 2018 by Mohamed Salah.

1996 UEFA European Championship

Now I know what you’re all thinking, “Okay, we get it. He was a beast at club level. But how did he perform for England”? Glad you asked. And good timing too.

Chronologically, we’ve just about gotten to the 1996 UEFA EUROS.

Surprisingly, at this point in time, Shearer’s international record was nothing too inspiring. He had only scored 5 goals in 23 matches for England. For a man of Shearer’s talents, this was clearly not up to par. However, going into the 1996 Euros, he seemed poised to rectify that notion.

And he gave it a good go too. He scored 5 goals over the course of the competition, winning the competitions golden boot. Unfortunately, England were knocked out in the semi-finals on penalties, by the eventual winners, Germany.

While Shearer did win the golden boot and was also selected in the official team of the tournament, that is pretty much the highest point in his international career. A real shame that he didn’t achieve more on that front.

Manchester United Saga Pt 2

Meanwhile, back in England, for one reason or another, Blackburn were more or less a sinking ship at this point. At 26 years of age, Shearer was just about ready to move on. As a result of this, Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United returned once more to try to secure his signature.

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However, this time things got a bit more complicated than before.

Remember this guy? Jack Walker? Yeah, he still did not like Manchester United. United offered several deals including one that had Any Cole moving to Blackburn in a cash plus player deal, with the cash component being £19 million.

The cash component alone in this offer would have made this a World record transfer, smashing the previous record by roughly £6 million. Andy Cole, who, remember shares the joint most goals scored in a single season with Shearer was I guess just a freebie (?).

It was even reported that United also offered £23 million outright at one point.

However, no deal.

Rovers knew that they would never be able to forgive themselves if they let their best player move to their biggest rivals at the time.

Therefore, Walker and Blackburn simply did not allow it.

And the fact that Shearer went on to sign for Newcastle United for £15 million, still a world record transfer at the time, by the way, is enough proof to indicate that it was never about the money for Blackburn.

On the other hand, according to Shearer himself; the decision to move to Newcastle was due to both his desire to return to his hometown, as well as a desire to play under Kevin Keegan, the Newcastle manager at the time.

Which makes sense, seeing as Shearer grew up as a Newcastle fan, with Kevin Keegan being one of his childhood heroes in the Newcastle side he grew up watching.

In all likelihood, Shearer’s reason for snubbing Man United, for a second time in 4 years, might I add, are likely a combination of all of the above.

However, looking back at how things played out, it’s hard not to wonder how things could’ve turned out had he firstly been allowed to and also chosen to sign for Manchester United.

Hmmm. Moving along.

Newcastle United

In his first season with Newcastle not much changed, really. Shearer was up to his old tricks again and won the golden boot for the third time in a row. In addition to this, he placed third in the Ballon D’or rankings for 1996. His efforts for Blackburn, Newcastle and for England in the Euros undoubtedly all contributed towards this.

Despite this, Newcastle finished second to Manchester United in the league.

Unfortunately, things only went downhill from here for Newcastle over the next few years.

They failed to finish in the top 10 in the Premier League for four seasons straight. This also coincided with Shearer suffering through a slew of injuries which limited his game time.

Thanks to these injuries, as well as the effects of age, he had to adapt his playstyle to focus more on his physical strength and hold up play. And he did this to great effect.

By the 2001/2002 season of the Premier League, Newcastle had been revitalized by Sir Bobby Robson, the manager at the time, as they finished in 4^th place.

A then 32-year-old Shearer managed to score 23 goals in 37 appearances in the league this season. Missing out on the golden boot by only one goal.

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And just when you thought the man was slowing down, fast forward to the 2003/2004 season and he went ahead and scored 22 goals in 37 appearances in the league once more, at 34 years of age.

Retirement

However, as time progressed, he never managed to reach those heights again. Which is understandable, of course.

Eventually Shearer retired in 2006, at 36 years of age.

The man had an absolutely incredible career and even has a statue outside of St James Park of him doing his signature celebration.

He retired as the top goal scorer in premier league history with 260 goals in total, a record that personally, I don’t see being broken any time soon.

I also don’t want anyone to forget that Shearer also scored 23 goals in the first division before the Premier League was even created, when he played for Southampton.

Although, these goals usually aren’t included in his overall goal tally; however, I honestly don’t see why not. Perhaps it’s because he’s so far ahead of the pack as it is that it doesn’t really matter whether you include them or not.

However, regardless of these insane stats, Shearer only managed to win one major trophy over his entire career. As I say this, looking back at his game by numbers, it’s still quite difficult for me to comprehend this.

Perhaps, in a different world, under different circumstances, things could have been different.