The Guardian reckons he said this about Al:

"He's a bugger, isn't he," the home manager Graeme Souness said ruefully of Shearer. "We had two big centre-halves but at times he messed them around physically tonight, the bastard."

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Answers

Al putting it about?

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

From what I saw, it was six of one and half a dozen of the other! At times they were climbing all over Al (nothing new there). He has to be tough and invariably gets more decisions against him than for him.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Coming from Souness that's a compliment - apparently when Souness was a a kid he used to leave his ball out in the park and hide behind bushes. When some other kid came along and kicked the ball, he would come out from behind the bush and do a 2 footed tackle to win the ball back. Nice bloke is Graeme

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Further from souness: "That doesn't happen on too many occasions. In fact, I don't think I've seen anybody else mess them around like he did last night, but Alan Shearer is a special case."

Brilliant! But then defenders aren't too bothered about Shearer anymore, so I've heard... ;-D

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002

Just the Sprouting Life slant on it. ;-)

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2002