A REAL challenge to Alan Shearer's position as the greatest England centre-forward of his era shows little sign of materialising more than two-and-a-half years since his retirement from the international scene.

Strong, uncompromising, powerful in the air, a great crosser of the ball and brutally efficient in front of goal; he has assembled a formidable armoury to rightfully take his place in the history books alongside the likes of Sir Tom Finney, Nat Lofthouse, Stan Mortensen, Sir Geoff Hurst, Gary Lineker and all those who have spearheaded their country's cause over the years.

It is a measure of the 32-year-old's enduring quality that the gap he left following Euro 2000 shows no signs of being filled.

Michael Owen has yet to find consistency in an England shirt, and the likes of Robbie Fowler, Emile Heskey, and Andy Cole have tried and failed to pick up his mantle. Shearer has taken full advantage of the extra rest it has afforded him to remind the Premiership and Europe that he is not finished just yet. His 17 goals to date this season have once again established him among the top flight's most dangerous marksmen along with Arsenal's Thierry Henry and Southampton's surprise package James Beattie.

His enduring qualities mean he is likely to pick up another award - that of Barclaycard Premiership's British player of the decade.

Shearer has 40 per cent of the current vote with the next best being one of his successors as England captain, Manchester United's David Beckham with 18 per cent.

Voting ends on Monday and it would be another honour for the player regarded by many as the greatest player in the history of the Premiership.

His tally of 218 goals in a decade of the Premiership is a massive 68 ahead of his nearest rival, former Magpies striker Andy Cole.

The man labelled by many as a dinosaur prior to his announcement that the Euro 2000 finals would be his swansong, will no doubt secretly be enjoying every goal that proves many of his doubters wrong.

Despite a record of a goal every other game for England - 30 in 63 appearances - he never retained the blue-eyed boy status he achieved at Euro '96. Shearer detests the battering-ram label often given to strikers of his type, and the term takes little account of his ability on the ball or vision.

Despite the dinosaur tag, his strength in possession, work-rate and harrying of defenders and goalkeepers are facets which current England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson would dearly love to have at his disposal.

The void left by the Newcastle skipper meant Eriksson inherited a major problem; Owen rightly has assumed the mantle of number one striker, but the identity of his best partner remains a mystery.

Heskey has all the physical attributes to fill that gap, but has only fleetingly looked like doing so, and has not benefited from being played out of position on the left side of midfield.

The likely emergence of Wayne Rooney and possibly Francis Jeffers may mean the days of a Shearer-type forward could be numbered - that is unless Beattie progresses into a Shearer Mk II.

It is now perhaps a case of harnessing the individual strengths of the main candidates and asking them to do what they do best rather than attempting to replicate the man himself.