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Opinion

Alan Shearer compares Claudio Ranieri and Leicester with Newcastle and Ruud Gullit

7 years ago
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Alan Shearer has been talking about Claudio Ranieri and the situation at Leicester City.

The Geordie legend comparing and contrasting it with what he experienced at Newcastle United under Ruud Gullit.

Alan Shearer says ‘I did not like him and he was not a fan of me either…he left me out of the team and I told him what I thought’.

Despite their low opinion of Gullit, Shearer says that not a single Newcastle player tried any less harder when they did play.

However, after Leicester’s much improved performance and win over Liverpool, Alan Shearer thinks this is definitely not the case with Claudio Ranieri’s now former club.

As he points out, the stats show that the Leicester players ran far further in that game than they had in any previous match this season.

The former number nine says that in this type of situation the problem for a club’s owners is that they ‘cannot sack 20 players’ and ‘the manager is therefore the only thing they can change’.

Whilst nobody doubts Shearer’s commitment at any time when at Newcastle, if that mad gamble by Ruud Gullit when leaving the likes of Ferguson and Shearer out of that Sunderland match, had worked, would there have been any alternative for Alan Shearer but to leave Newcastle and where would history have taken us all then?

Alan Shearer speaking to Coral:

“What Leicester achieved last season should have given Ranieri the right to have the rest of this campaign to turn around their league form. Even if they get relegated under him it should have been enough for them to stick by him and allow him the opportunity to take them back up.

“I have been in a dressing room at Newcastle where the manager did not have the respect of all the players.

When Ruud Gullit joined the club he immediately distanced himself from senior squad members. I did not like him and he was not a fan of me either and that was very much in the public domain.

“He left me out of the team and I told him what I thought. That was not a healthy dressing room to be in but despite that, you could never accuse any of us of not trying our best to get positive results.

“I didn’t need the sacking of Claudio Ranieri to confirm that this group of Leicester players were not working for him. It was as clear as it could possibly be. Their performance against Liverpool just went to prove that. There has clearly been a fall-out with several players in that Leicester dressing room, if not all of them.

“The tactics in that game had nothing to do with the result. When you look at the stats against Liverpool, the players ran more than at any time this season. Those players went out and put in a shift for the first time in a long time. Claudio must have been sat at home and been amazed at what he was seeing.

“In a situation like this, the problem the owners have is that they cannot sack 20 players. The manager therefore is the only thing they can change. That is the harsh reality of it. There is no doubt it will happen again. 

“It hasn’t soured what Leicester achieved last season – nothing can do that. They deserved the title because you can’t fluke something over 38 games. But they became everybody’s favourite second club but that has gone out of the window after what has happened to Claudio. Plenty of fans would probably like to see them relegated now, the goodwill has gone.”

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