The problem with predictions in football is that they are, normally, very wrong; particularly when they revolve around a striker with a record transfer fee hanging limply around his boyish neck.
Technically, then, former Blackburn Rovers star Mark Atkins can’t be held accountable for his early prediction that Alan Shearer was a total waste of £3.6million in 1992. Shearer – widely regarded as one of the greatest-ever players in Premier League history and the division's all-time record goalscorer, ICYMI – didn’t really zing in his first appearance up in Scotland during pre-season. His first-half cameo was underwhelming. In training, he struggled to keep up with the worst of them. He was the poorest runner in the squad by a country mile.
Had Jack Walker really gazumped Sir Alex Ferguson and pathological winners Manchester United for this guy? The benefit of 30 years hindsight is that we can say “of course” and nominate Shearer’s record transfer from Southampton to Blackburn as one of the best in Premier League history.
Not that you would need 30 years' worth of hindsight to draw that conclusion. Shearer’s first competitive game for Blackburn would suffice, a match in which the goal-glutton scored twice against Crystal Palace with two strikes from the edge of the 18-yard box. Despite missing half the season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury suffered against Leeds in December, Shearer scored 16 goals in the 21 games he did feature in. The augurs were in place.
Even so, what Premier League defenders could actually do with those augurs was an ultimately forlorn enterprise. How does one possibly defend a player whose preternatural ability to find the back of the net encompasses every goal imaginable (and even those that didn’t yet exist)? How does one defend the man who gave made the word "prolific" redundant?
Throw in elite vision and understanding of the game, and the question becomes rhetorical: You don’t defend him. You limit damage. You assess the rubble. And you acknowledge a legend in the making.
Shearer is synonymous with the carnage he caused in the black and white stripes of his boyhood club Newcastle United, but his first transfer to Blackburn from Southampton was the springboard from which Shearer launched himself into the stratosphere of Premier League legends amongst legends. Blackburn benefactor Walker’s millions are owed a good amount of credit for prising Shearer away from the Saints and making a major statement of intent for the club’s future. But it is Shearer’s quality that allowed Rovers fans to believe in their football club again.
Shearer went on to score 112 goals in 138 Premier League appearances for Rovers, becoming the first player in Premier League history to pass the 100-goal milestone in a 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur.
But it’s Shearer’s third season that, rightfully, gets all the glory. The season was a match-by-match session in how to set ridiculous expectations that will never be achieved again in the domestic game (fit that on a trophy), one defined mostly by an audacious 34 goals and a League title wrangled away from arch rivals Manchester United on the final day. As you do.
Shearer’s time at Blackburn brings up the question of value. How do you value a transfer? In love? Titles? Silverware? Goals? Headline dominance? Net profits? The dreams dared to be dreamt courtesy of one man, two feet and a head designed specifically for terrorising defenders?
Football’s debate-happy patrons will argue their points. But there is one method that holds water across all of them: Money. Specifically, how much money another club is prepared to fork out for the player.
Newcastle eventually smashed the world record transfer fee to secure Shearer’s signature from Rovers, forking out a breathtaking £15.6million for the serial goalscorer after Walker insisted Newcastle pay him interest for allowing the sale to be made over two instalments.
Walker arguably might have gotten more had he not been adamant not to sell his most prized possession to arch rivals Manchester United. Instead, the prodigal son went home.
So, does Shearer get your vote? Or maybe another League icon pips him to the post? Cast your Best Premier League Transfers Ever vote above.
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Once you have cast your vote, tell us your favourite Shearer memories in the comments section below.
