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,
“I used to play with the gaffer and when you had him in the team you thought you were going to win. That belief, that confidence – every time I’d see his name on the team-sheet I’d believe we were going to win,” Taylor said.
“He tells you what he demands and you don’t want to let him down. When you see people are talking to him, they’re frightened. He has that aura about him.
“Someone who can do that, and do it to big players at this club, that’s someone you can’t let down, someone you can’t say no to.
“He is like what he was on the pitch – a leader. He demands the best, he has high standards. I think we needed a kick up the backside. If we have people now who are not performing then they’ll not be in the team. The name doesn’t matter, he has proven that.”
The endorphins that coursed through black and white blood after Monday’s win have changed attitudes at St James’s Park, increasing confidence and boosting morale ahead of the final two games of the campaign.
“We came in for a cool-down which was a pool session and all the lads just looked so relaxed. Much more upbeat,” he said. “We can beat Fulham and Aston Villa, we’ve got the belief we can do it. Everyone has pulled their finger out and I think it’s showing.”
Taylor hopes that the unity between players and supporters can be reprised this afternoon too. United’s administration has been hammered, rightly, for mistakes made this season. But handing out flags to fans was a masterstroke because it looked intimidating – its splendour matched by the passionate and vocal support that the supporters lent to the team. Taylor, whose obvious passion bubbled over when he equalised Habib Beye’s early own goal, is hoping fans heed the club’s call to bring the flags again this afternoon.
“It was better than the derby atmosphere. The flags – I don’t know whose idea that was but for me it was one of the best. It was like a foreign atmosphere, like Sporting Lisbon,” he said.
“And it was intimidating for the Boro players, how many times did they kick the ball out? It’s how it should be, it shouldn’t be like that just for a vital game, it should be like that every week. They play a big part. Talking to the Boro players after the game, they were saying how noisy the fans were.” United’s players must be wary of becoming intoxicated by the result and atmosphere of the Middlesbrough game.
Fulham, transformed under Roy Hodgson, will ask many more questions of the Shearer-inspired mini-revival. Compact, hard to beat and defensively sound, they have conceded only 18 goals on their travels all season. Taylor will gain heart by the opposing statistic – that they have only scored ten and won two away from Craven Cottage.
Either way, he believes that fearing what others can do is part of the reason Newcastle have found themselves in so much trouble in the first place.
“Fulham might be harder, but we’re relying on ourselves,” he said.
“We’ve to give a bit more, we know how much it means for our futures, we don’t want to be Championship players, we are Premiership players and that is how we want it to stay.”
