ALAN SHEARER last night told his Newcastle United teammates they must "work their socks off" to extricate themselves from their terrible run of form.

The Newcastle captain reckons the fans were right to jeer the home team off the pitch after their latest sub-standard display at St James' Park, against Birmingham City on Saturday.

Sir Bobby Robson urged his stuttering side to "fight" their way out of trouble at this early stage of the season, which has begun with a Champions League exit and successive home defeats to Manchester United, Partizan Belgrade and Birmingham.

And Shearer backed up his manager by insisting such a response would haul Newcastle out of their lean spell.

He said: "We have to show character, but we'll come out fighting. It's a demanding public but it always has been. We coped with the demands last season and the season before that when things were going well.

"We must not allow outside interference to affect it all. We've got to stick together. We'll get it right, believe me.

"The fans aren't happy; they want to be entertained. If you go to a concert and it's a bad singer, you're not happy, so I understand the booing.

"They've had two good years but they haven't seen any good football this season and we're not happy about that. We haven't created any chances and it's hugely frustrating.

"We'll stick together, and we have to work our socks off.

"It's simply that we're not playing well, but we have to scrap. You have to have bad times to appreciate the good, and we've had good times here.

"It's been a rotten week; very tough. We haven't played well. We have to be man enough to admit that and show the character to say that. We've got what we deserved."

Shearer dismissed out of hand the idea that Robson, at 70 years old, is too old to manage at the Premiership coalface.

The Newcastle boss came in for increasing criticism during a week that he ranks as the worst in his footballing life.

But Shearer said: "Bobby Robson is six months older than last season.

"That's it, end of story. It's that simple, and to be honest it's ridiculous.

"People are looking for excuses for where things have gone wrong but the simple answer is players aren't playing well.

"It's not players individually, but as a team we're not playing well.

"People will look into everything to try to say what's going wrong, but we know what it is."