Coaching role could be key to Shearer staying

The Newcastle captain, who returns to United's first-team squad for today's visit of struggling Southampton following a 12-game absence through injury, insists he will hang up his boots at the end of the current campaign.

Despite his vow, Souness admitted he is determined to hang on to his skipper's services and says he will do all he can to ensure he remains at the club.

"I keep asking him (if he'll play next season), but since he's been injured it has been a difficult time for him," admitted Souness.

"He's not used to being injured and he's an angry man around the place, so I don't think now is the best time to ask him what his long-term plans are.

"I'm hoping we have a good second half of the season, and he does too, and maybe make him re-think.

"Alan Shearer is important to this club.

"Not only on a Saturday afternoon before 3pm, but in every other walk of footballing life he is important to me.

"He represents everything that is good and great about football, and everything that is good and great about this club.

"If he stays on he will be an enormous help to me, even if he wasn't playing every week. It (a coaching role) would not be out of the question because I want him around the place.

"He is not just the top scorer in the Premiership, he's about 70 goals in front of everybody else, it's ridiculous.

"He is a proper football player. He's horrible and angry when it's not going his way; a never-say-die attitude; every day he trains like it's going to be his last and he's an example to every other player at this club. I just want him around."

At the beginning of the season Souness had the problem of trying to accommodate four fit strikers into two places, something lost to him during the festive period.

The 51-year-old Scot finally has that luxury back once again after Patrick Kluivert declared himself fully fit for the Saints' clash.

Kluivert signed a one-year contract last summer, with the option of a further two on Tyneside if both parties were suited.

But Souness hinted the option was unlikely to be offered unless the enigmatic Dutchman proved he is still the best striker of his type in the game.

"Patrick's Newcastle career has yet to start," confessed Souness. "It's been stop and start.

"I want to see that ridiculous ability, and it is ridiculous ability, coupled with a great desire.

"If we get that we have the best centre forward of his type in the world at this club.

"At 28 you should be approaching your best years. He was the top scorer in Spain for five consecutive years and he earned his right (to being one of the best players in the world).

"But I want him to say to himself, I'm in England, a completely different challenge, and I don't want to hear people talk about things I have done in the past.

"I say that to myself every morning and to every player at this club.

"No one is interested in what you've done yesterday. The supporters at this club are only interested in what you're going to do tomorrow.

"He did something yesterday in training, to win a game we were playing, to score a goal - that is as good as it gets.

"I want Patrick to show us exactly what he is made of in the coming months, to show great desire, to show our public that he is the greatest centre forward of his type around, because that is what he has been."

With one Premiership win in eight it would be an understatement to say Newcastle have had a turbulent campaign.

Souness admitted the Magpies' poor first half of the season is down to being without several of his key personnel.

The Scot, however, believes he has every reason to believe his side's fortunes will change on the run in.

"We have had an indifferent first half of the season," he confessed.

"But I would ask you to look at any team in the Premiership, and if they were missing Alan Shearer, Patrick Kluivert, Nicky Butt and Stephen Carr, all at the same time, I think that would have an effect on most clubs.

"But we've not dwelt on it and just got on with things.

"We've been faced with playing some young boys; faced with playing people out of position and trying to fit square pegs in round holes in a number of games and that is why we are looking to strengthen in a number of areas between now and the start of next season."

Southampton arrived on Tyneside last night without a league win since new boss Harry Redknapp took the reigns from Steve Wigley in mid-December, although the south coast side did take comfort in last week's 3-1 victory at Northampton in the FA Cup.

But Souness, who enjoyed a spell as Saints' boss in 1996/97, says United will not underestimate his former side despite their lowly second-from-bottom position.

He said: "Southampton will offer a challenge and it will be difficult. They are a team with a new manager and they will be out to impress him and we must be ready for that challenge."

* AC Milan issued a 'hands-off Jon Dahl Tomasson' warning to Newcastle yesterday after they were linked with a move for their former striker.

Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani has dismissed the move and insists that Tomasson is going nowhere, as Milan do not want to sell any of their players.

He said: "I've said it many times, Milan have decided not to sell their players.''