Some nice quotes from Big Al on icDeadPeople after yesterday's match:

"The crowd's reaction sent a shiver down my spine and that was just when I was warming up. The ovation when I came on was something else and all I need now is match fitness.

"We were pleased with our performance but there was a tinge of disappointment in the dressing room. One lapse of concentration at the back has cost us the points but we still had the chances to win the game." Craig Bellamy won a place in the hearts of Newcastle fans everywhere when his smartly taken 43rd minute strike cancelled out a typical piece of Kevin Phillips opportunism nine minutes earlier.

"I feel a bit for Nobby because he's been among the goals for us already this season and if we'd have wanted those chances to drop for anyone it would have been him," added Shearer.

"I tried to pick him up in the dressing room after the final whistle by explaining to him that it could have been much worse. He could have missed a penalty against Sunderland.

"I don't think he saw the funny side and I know how he feels. He could have scored three or four but he knows that one would have been enough." Shearer revealed he felt no reaction to his troublesome knee injury and the former Blackburn striker is bidding to start the second of two back-to-back derbies on Teesside in two weeks' time.

"I'm fine and the knee feels very good," he explained. "The last 14 months has been the worst period of my professional career because one day my knee would feel fine and the next day there would be pain.

"For the first time I can remember I am feeling no pain whatsoever and I just need to rediscover my old sharpness. I didn't want to come back too early but now is the right time and I can only get better." Shearer will be licking his lips at the prospect of Laurent Robert supplying the ammunition from Newcastle's left this season and the Frenchman was in imperious form again yesterday.

"It's been four years since we've had a genuine left winger with pace and Laurent is an exciting player," added a striker who has always preferred playing in a side boasting two wide men.

"For the last three years everything has been down the right, on Nobby's side, but now we have some balance again.

"I've been watching him very closely in the last few weeks and his signing has to be good for me."

-- Anonymous, August 27, 2001