Driven to drink

At long last Alan Shearer has finally started to air his views on one time strike partner Craig Bellamy. Unsurprisingly, Shearer's views on the part time text pest, part time amateur golfer, full time arse do not reflect well on the the Liverpool striker - with Shearer apparently resorting to drink to drown out his concerns that Bellamy has been linked with us in the press.

Whilst Allardyce has a reputation of being able to handle troubled characters, I suspect he'll have his hands full with Joey Barton next season. As it is, whilst Shearer and Speed can both relax safe in the knowledge that even if Sam was daft enough to take the new Wales captain back to St James' Park neither of them would have a great deal to do with him. What price the third member of their holidaying party - Steve Harper - hitting the bottle with a vengeance when he heard the story.

For someone whose punditry has at times being accused of blandness (except when he was slagging off Graham Poll) his quotes are the Shearer equivalent of one of Bellamy's foul mouthed outbursts. Talented player he may be, but he won't be on his way back if Shearer or Terry Mac have anything to do with it.