Premier League Bets: Shear frustration for Alan that Owen isn't getting the service

Premier League / Ralph Ellis / 21 April 2009 / Leave a Comment

Ralph Ellis on how Alan Shearer is finding life in the dugout harder than on the Match Of The Day sofa. First task: get your premium goalscorer Michael Owen some service.

Football managers are always contemptuously dismissive of football writers. For most of them, if you haven't played the game at any level then you can't know what you're talking about. Never mind you've seen 120 games a season for 30 years, and spent your life talking to players, managers, coaches, and physios, if you've never been paid for crossing that white line you haven't got a clue.

Now maybe that's fair enough, but it's always then amusing that many bosses also have no time for the views of the pundits who actually HAVE played the game - and not even when they've been at the very top like Messrs Hansen and Lawrenson from the Match of the Day sofa. "Ah," they tell you sagely. "But they've never managed, have they?"

It's an argument I suspect Alan Shearer is beginning to understand. Because the difference between sitting in the warmth of a TV studio, analysing tapes and using the whizziest gadgetry to provide an insight, as opposed to coming up with instant ideas stood in front of the dug-out with only your own brain to fall back on, is beginning to be all too real.

It was a point I asked Shearer about shortly after his team had somehow scrambled a draw at Stoke two weeks ago. "There's no comparison," he admitted. "There are so many things going through your head and you have to find the answers in seconds."

Clearly Shearer is struggling to find some of those answers. His teams have changed formations more often than socks so far. And today's Daily Mail highlights one of the things he still hasn't got right - a service for Michael Owen.

The Mail have got from Opta a graph of all the places on the field where the fallen former England centre forward touched the ball during Sunday's trip to Tottenham - and of 40 occasions only two of them were in the opposing penalty area. And only one of those was in the six yard box where Owen does his most deadly work. They are damning statistics.

Shearer took over the Toon talking about how his old England front partner would be the key to survival, but unless he can fashion a formation that makes chances for him then there's no hope. It leaves the rookie boss with his first major decision: Does he stick with Owen and show faith in him, or does he go for a plan B and admit his first big idea was wrong.

Monday's match against Portsmouth is massive, and there's no justification at the moment for Newcastle to be [2.08] favourites to win it. Pompey have now lost just once - against Chelsea - in eight games. And it's not only Owen who is not scoring goals or getting chances; the Toon, who are [1.79 to go down, have scored only three times in eight matches.

No wonder today's Daily Mirror raises another question: What's the difference between Alan Shearer and Newcastle United? Shearer will be on Match of the Day next season!

Five things you might not know about Michael Owen

1.His dad Terry played more than 330 League games as a striker and scored 71 goals, most of them with Chester City.

2.He turned down Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal before signing schoolboy forms with Liverpool

3.He and wife Louise got engaged on Valentine's Day in 2004, and had planned to marry at their Manor House home - until they were told that if they got a special licence for the ceremony they would have to make the house available to any other couple wanting to get married there for the next three years

4.He commutes to and from Newcastle for training in his own helicopter, a Eurocopter Dauphin formerly used by the French Navy for air and sea rescue

5.He always puts his right sock, right shin pad and right boot on first