Alan Shearer felt the need to apologise to Gary Lineker for telling an awful joke about Southampton defender Yan Valery on Match of the Day.
The Newcastle United legend teamed up with fellow pundit Ian Wright to serenade presenter Lineker and viewers with a rendition of The Zutons' classic song 'Valerie'. During their analysis of Tottenham Hotspur's emphatic 4-1 victory over Southampton, Shearer was critical of Valery for not closing down Heung-Min Son in the build-up to Eric Dier 's goal.
The all-time Premier League record goalscorer highlighted the 23-year-old Frenchman, asking: "Why doesn't he come on over?" After Wright quickly replied saying "Who?" to which Shearer sang "Valerie" in the tune of song which was famously covered by Amy Winehouse and reached the top of the charts in 2007. Lineker could only muster a dejected "oh dear" after clocking on, to which the St James' Park icon replied: "Sorry Gary."
While Wright was giggling away, Shearer - who also played for Southampton during his early years - continued with his analysis and affirmed: "You've got to get tighter. There's no one around him. Good players, you can't give them that amount of space... They were all over the place again, defensively, and that has to get better. I can see them struggling. They've got to work on that or it'll be a long, hard season for Southampton."
Once the ex-Saints striker finished, Lineker lamented Wright and Shearer's comedic work by adding: "Morecambe and Wise, they've rehearsed that for the last four hours."
The game itself was no laughing matter for Valery and his teammates, however, as the Southampton's season began with a crushing defeat. Despite captain James Ward-Prowse giving the Saints an early lead after just 12 minutes, goals from Ryan Sessegnon, Dier, Dejan Kulusevski and a Mohammed Salisu own goal put Spurs out of sight.
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Valery wasn't even on the pitch for the latter two goals, having been substituted by manager Ralph Hasenhuttl at half-time. "We had a very good start today," Hasenhuttl began post-match. "To go in the lead, everything went in our direction and then we defended a little bit deeper in our shape and then conceded two goals from crosses where we don’t have enough pressure on the ball.
"This is the key on the shape, sometimes you're a little bit passive, you invite them to cross, you have to defend quite well in the box which we didn't do in this moment. It felt a little bit like the opponent switched into the next gear and we cannot follow, after the first twenty minutes.
"This is frustrating to see how big the gap is between the two teams to be honest. After the first goal they had the feeling that they were absolutely in the game and then they smashed us with their crosses, we couldn't defend in the way we wanted to."
