Alan Shearer insists that a fit and firing Mark Viduka could've been the key to rescuing Newcastle United from relegation in 2009.
Viduka had been plagued by injuries during the final season of his professional career which had meant he was often unable to be called upon as the Magpies battled against relegation.
Shearer took the reins for the final eight games of the campaign with the unenviable task of lifting his beloved Magpies from the relegation zone. He set Viduka the goal of regaining his fitness for the final stretch of the season, but a final day defeat at Aston Villa consigned Newcastle to the Championship.
But the Newcastle legend strongly believes that if he had been at the helm a month earlier, Viduka could've played a decisive role in preserving their Premier League status.
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"What I liked about him as a player is, when I went into Newcastle as a manager, he was sort of left on the scrapheap," Shearer told Optus Sport. "The previous manager had basically forgotten about him. He was injured and we were coming to the end of the season and he was a no-hoper.
"I went into the dressing room and said to him, 'look, we've got eight games left, it's entirely up to you. You might, if you work at it, just be fit for the last game. If you score one goal that keeps us up can you imagine'.
"And I said, 'it's up to you but I'd love you to get fit and work hard'. And he did, his attitude was amazing, he worked his socks off, he got fit with four or five games to play. He could've said because of what happened beforehand that he didn't want to do it but his attitude was brilliant.
"If I had got in there a month earlier and got him fitter and got him working the way that he did for us for the last few games then I'm pretty convinced we would've stayed up because he would've made the difference."
Viduka retired at the end of the 2008/09 season after spending nine seasons in the Premier League. The Australian legend scored 92 goals in the English top-flight for Leeds United, Middlesbrough and Newcastle respectively.
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