Orwellian image works for Toon boss Shearer

May 16 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

BIG Brother – in the form of Alan Shearer – is watching over Newcastle’s players, and the manager’s spies are having the desired effect. Mark Douglas reports,

FEAR has cast a long shadow over St James’s Park this season. Performances racked with tension, Mike Ashley chased off the terraces for his calamitous handling of Kevin Keegan, the lingering fear of Championship football that has grown as the weeks have passed – all signs of a club scared of its own shadow.

Fear still remains at Newcastle United. But under Alan Shearer, whose managerial qualities emerge with sharper clarity by the day, it has been channelled to produce the best from under-performing players desperate for direction.

The disciplinary crackdown is old news, but little details continue to emerge. Injured players are now required to do a full seven-hour working day without exception, and a lack of effort on the training field will be met with a demand to return for further work in the afternoon.

“A lack of effort” is not decided on by a manager’s whim – it is based on the results churned out by the heart monitors strapped to every first team player.

It is unlikely that Steven Taylor, United’s defensive colossus, has ever been ordered back for further afternoon work. But, he admits, he has the fear too. In his case it is a feeling that wherever he goes in Newcastle, Shearer has contacts and spies who are watching, ready to report back if he steps out of line.

“Everyone realises they can’t get away with anything. He is from Newcastle. He knows people throughout Newcastle and he will find out anything,” the defender said.

“He’s like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United – you can’t get away with anything. That is what this football club needed. People can’t come here and think it’s a jolly-up.

“All I have to eat now is steaks on my George Foreman grill. If I go into a restaurant I’m thinking: ‘He knows what I’m eating. Will I order chips or not?’ I’m a bit wary now. If someone looks at me, I’m thinking does he know where I’m going, the toilet? In the supermarket I’m thinking: ‘Is he going to find out? Will he see the cameras?’ He’s got eyes everywhere, contacts. He finds out.”

If that Orwellian ‘Big Brother’ image sounds like a nightmare, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Shearer’s disciplinary crackdown has yielded results – and not just the win against Middlesbrough. The return to form and fitness of Mark Viduka is a significant stripe to Shearer’s nascent managerial career, and so is the return of confidence and a winning mentality.