Michael Owen and Alan Shearer have made the headlines today as their long-running spat erupted on Twitter.
It happened after Owen made disparaging comments about Newcastle and claimed he didn’t want to sign for the club [Mirror].
Shearer hit back on Twitter before Michael Owen responded with a potentially explosive revelation of his own – that Shearer was “inches away” from signing for Liverpool while he was at Newcastle.
George Caulkin – a long-time Newcastle journalist, previously with the Times and now at the Athletic – took part in an online Q&A today with fans and plenty of questions were posed around the spat.
One fan asked, “Did Shearer really want to sign for Liverpool?”
Caulkin replied saying, “In any career, there are always moments of tension and uncertainty and that was as true of Shearer as anybody else.
“He was at Newcastle for a long time. Surely he would have left if Ruud Gullit had stayed at the club, for example.
“Bobby tried to protect him and he rested him as Alan grew older. Alan hated that! Liverpool were lurking. The club had a decision to make, but all parties stepped back from the brink and thank heavens they did.”
Owen picking the wrong fight
Shearer is a legend at Newcastle. If Owen wants to get into a spat with someone over loyalty to the club, he would have been best advised to pick anyone else.
However, he’s got a book to sell at the moment and for a pundit who’s made his name by being fairly beige on TV, he came out fighting today when challenged by Shearer. The more publicity he has at the moment, the better his book will sell.
The revelation that Shearer was “inches away” from signing for Liverpool is an explosive one if true. It’s not information that was known before and it’s obviously been said to question Shearer’s loyalty to Newcastle.
That’s going to be tough. Shearer signed for Newcastle in 1996 and stayed there for 10 years until he retired, scoring 181 goals in 371 games. Owen scored 30 in 79 games.
Another Newcastle journalist, Chris Waugh, said that there was “interest from Liverpool during Houllier’s time in charge although I do not know the specifics of whether anything was ever likely… His loyalty cannot be questioned in the way Owen attempted to.”
Houllier was the manager of Liverpool from 1998-2004, while Shearer was at Newcastle.
It would have been a huge signing at the time and it certainly would have changed the complexion of Shearer’s career completely.
So far, Shearer has stayed quiet after the latest revelation from Owen and it’s probably best a line is drawn under the spat for now. In the minds of Newcastle fans there’s only one winner in the fight and whether a move to Liverpool was on the cards or not, Shearer stayed with Newcastle until he retired as a player and came back to manage the club.