Alan Shearer on fan unrest, Steve Bruce and takeover hopes at Newcastle United

Thousands of supporters, unhappy at the summer departure of Rafa Benitez, boycotted yesterday’s 1-0 defeat to Arsenal at St James’s Park in a protest against owner Mike Ashley.

“There’s a lot of unrest, because the life and soul has been sucked out of Newcastle over the last 12 years,” Shearer told Coral.

“They just want a bit of hope, and this owner hasn’t given that. He, himself, in recent interviews has said he’d give himself one out of five for ownership. That’s why there’s so much unrest towards him.”

Shearer told Bruce, his close friend, that he shouldn’t take the job at Newcastle.

“I don’t think there’s any ill-feeling towards Steve Bruce, who’s a friend of mine,” said Shearer, the club’s all-time leading scorer.

“I spoke to him before and after he got the Newcastle job. He said me to ‘what do you think?’. I said to him ‘I don’t think you should take it’, because I like him, I respect him. I hope he does a fantastic job.”

Ashley put United up for sale in late 2017, and the Bin Zayed Group claimed they had “agreed terms” on a sale earlier this summer.

However, Shearer said: “I don’t think anyone realistically expected it to go through. It’s copy and paste. It comes up every 18 months, and no-one genuinely believes a takeover is going to happen. Something’s only for sale if you have a willing seller.”