Feature

Shearer's Top 5 goals: I knew I still had the power

9 Sep 2018

Striker on how adapting to a more physical game helped him score wonder goals like this

Alan Shearer is picking his five favourite goals from the record 260 he scored in the Premier League.

NEW 2-1 CHE, 2003/04

The fourth goal that Shearer selects is a fantastic strike from distance at St. James' Park.

Newcastle United were drawing 1-1 with title-chasing Chelsea in late April 2004 when Shearer decided to try his luck shortly after half-time.

Quite apart from the technique that was required to execute his audacious strike, Shearer first had to outmuscle one of the best defenders in the game at the time in order to create the opportunity.

Shearer says it was an example of how he adapted his game, with the onus on power over pace, to prolong his prolific goalscoring career.

"I wasn’t going to run away from Marcel Desailly at that stage of my career, because he was quicker than I was," says Shearer in the video above. "But I always fancied my chances of having a physical battle.

"He was tough, he was strong, but what I managed to do was, when the ball came into me, I managed to shrug him off me. I go to my right to come back inside on to my right foot."

Shearer was still around 30 yards out when he let fly, but the way he struck his shot left Chelsea goalkeeper Marco Ambrosio rooted to the spot.

"It’s a matter of getting the shot on target, it’s a matter of hitting the top of the ball to create the spin, and it’s another one where I’ve caught it so sweet.

"I’ve hit the top of the ball, and it was the dip that did the goalkeeper."

Shearer's winning goal proved a hammer blow to second-placed Chelsea's ambitions for the season as the very next day Arsenal's 'Invincibles' got the draw they needed at Tottenham Hotspur to win the 2003/04 Premier League title.