Shearer's Cup dream ends in bitter defeat

Last night, as Newcastle lost 1-0 at Chelsea to crash out of the FA Cup, his words adopted a poignantly prophetic tone.

Despite the plethora of points that separate them in the Premiership, the Magpies did not deserve to lose to a Chelsea side who are rapidly running out of steam as the business end of the season approaches. A draw would have been a far fairer return for their unstinting efforts.

Similarly, Shearer did not deserve to see his dream of ending his hometown club's 51-year wait for a domestic trophy dashed for a final time.

After nine-and-a-half years of sterling service on Tyneside, Newcastle's favourite son deserves better. With his side's last hopes of silverware now extinguished, he will not get it before he hangs up his boots in the summer.

Shearer will retire as Newcastle's greatest ever goalscorer after breaking Jackie Milburn's record this year but, when he looks back on one of the most illustrious careers in the English game, that will surely seem precious little reward for his efforts.

History will confirm that his boyhood heroes were unable to match his ambition and, though the former England international would never admit as much himself, a chronic lack of medals blights a career that would otherwise be considered one of the most accomplished of the modern age.

Shearer's dream has died and, when the end finally came at Stamford Bridge, it was accompanied by little more than a whimper. At least now his testimonial will not be hampered by preparations for an FA Cup final and, in many ways, it will reflect the 35-year-old's career. He will take centre stage at Newcastle while the real action goes on elsewhere.

An anonymous Shearer was unable to make any impact on last night's game and so, rather than setting up a glorious farewell, the striker was forced to watch as his defenders' early nerves proved decisive.

Given his antics in last weekend's 3-1 defeat to Liverpool, the absence of the suspended Jean-Alain Boumsong hardly represented a significant blow to a Newcastle side who had shipped 16 goals in their last five visits to Stamford Bridge.

But, while Boumsong's bungling undermined United's efforts on Sunday, the Frenchman can at least claim to be an established international.

At the start of the season, neither Robbie Elliott nor Peter Ramage were even established members of the first-team squad at St James' Park. Last night they found themselves saddled with the task of stopping Chelsea's Premiership pacesetters. Their resistance lasted little more than three minutes.

Glenn Roeder had spoken at length about the need to negate Chelsea's threat from set-pieces in the build-up to the game yet, from their first attack, Jose Mourinho's men were granted the freedom of the penalty area from which to fashion the simplest of openers.

Damien Duff swung over a corner from the left-hand side and, with no Newcastle defender offering even the pretence of a challenge, John Terry drilled a fierce low shot through the legs of an exposed Shay Given.

On Tuesday night, Birmingham had conceded an early goal and gone on to ship seven but, while the Magpies' patched-up defence suffered the occasional scare before the interval, a St Andrew's-style rout rarely looked to be on the cards.

Instead, the visitors' five-man midfield successfully stifled much of their hosts' attacking ambition and even provided the platform for a series of forward forays that exposed weaknesses in Chelsea's defensive ranks.

Nolberto Solano had the measure of the recalled Asier Del Horno on the right-hand side, while the roving Kieron Dyer asked questions of Geremi whenever he charged at the former Middlesbrough midfielder on the opposite flank. The Cameroon international was a square peg in a round hole at right-back and Dyer, in particular, had the wherewithal to treat him as such.

The midfielder's intelligent 17th-minute lay-off bamboozled the entire Chelsea backline but, while Lee Bowyer's low drive was creeping inside the right-hand post, Carlo Cudicini got down well to claw it to safety. A 25-year-old Shearer might have profited from the rebound - as it was, the 35-year-old version was effortlessly outpaced by an ever-alert Terry.

With Newcastle making much of the first-half running, Solano whistled a 22nd-minute free-kick narrowly wide of the post and Shola Ameobi, posted to the left of midfield, cut in from the touchline to drag a long-range strike past the left-hand upright. The Magpies were down, but they certainly weren't out.

They might have been had Ramage not made a crucial close-range clearance from Didier Drogba's hooked volley, or Ricardo Carvalho not inexplicably missed from no more than three yards on the stroke of half-time. The Portuguese defender stole in front of a static Newcastle defence to meet Frank Lampard's free-kick, but somehow diverted his first-time volley wide with a gaping goal at his mercy.

That miss will hardly have helped Mourinho's mood in the wake of last weekend's surprise slip-up at Fulham and, given his side's electric start to the second half, it is safe to assume the Portuguese eschewed his mild-mannered approach for some old-fashioned teacup throwing during the interval.

Del Horno, Drogba and Eidur Gudjohnsen all fired over the crossbar within three minutes of the re-start, forcing Roeder to replace Celestine Babayaro with Newcastle's forgotten man, Craig Moore. After eight months on Tyneside, the Australian has finally proved he is not a figment of Graeme Souness' imagination.

That his first meaningful act was to pick up a yellow card for a pushing match with Drogba, though, suggests the wait might not have been all that worthwhile.

Drogba's response was to fire in a close-range snapshot that Given beat away at his front post and Shaun Wright-Phillips wasted a glorious opportunity to settle things when he blazed over with ten minutes left.

Newcastle kept battling to the death but their cup campaign ended on a sour note.

Elliott, who had already been booked for a first-half foul, was sent off for hauling down Wright-Phillips in stoppage time.

Shearer tried to get referee Steve Bennett to change his mind but, once again, he was powerless to prevent his side suffering from the frailty of others.

l Former England and Newcastle United manager Sir Bobby Robson believes Martin O'Neill would make a high-calibre successor to Sven Goran Eriksson, writes JACK LESLIE.

Despite the former Northern Ireland skipper also topping the Magpies' list of managerial targets, Robson sees him among the front runners for the England post.

Robson said: ''I would like to see an English manager get the job because he will have the fervour and passion from within, but that also applies to Martin O'Neill.

"He is a good manager and in the equation."

Result: Chelsea 1, Newcastle United 0.

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