PAUL HART believes the Alan Shearer factor will have little bearing on Newcastle United’s bid for Premier League survival unless the former England captain’s players share the responsibility with their new boss.

Pompey caretaker Paul Hart was already more than six weeks into his own rescue job at Fratton Park by the time Shearer decided to leave the comfort of the pundit’s sofa and return to St James’ Park.

While Hart has won three and drawn four of his first nine matches, taking Pompey to the relative respectability of 14th place in the table, Shearer has managed just one point from his first three games in charge and desperately needs victory over Hart tonight.

But Hart, whose side are seven points clear of their hosts with just five games to go, insists his own players have rebuilt such belief in themselves over the past two months that it will take a special performance to beat them.

Former Nottingham Forest defender Hart – who was also City Ground manager for more than three years from 2001 – admits he has learned a lot from late, great Brian Clough, including his belief that: ‘‘No manager, no matter how good he is, has ever actually won a football match.

‘‘What Cloughie meant when he told me that in one of his lighter moments was that the game is really all about players.

‘‘I said when Shearer took the job at Newcastle, and I’ve said it many times, was that Alan Shearer was a great player and I’m sure he’s going to become a great manager if he wants to be.

‘‘But it is just the same at Newcastle as it is here. It is players who make teams play.

‘‘I don’t give myself any pats on the back. All I’ve done is to put down a platform from which the players can perform and they have responded to that. We lost at Manchester United in midweek but we came away with our heads held high because we showed once again how hard we are to beat.

‘‘At both ends of the table it’s a tough this time of the season. And there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground either. The fight, at whatever end, seems to involve nearly every team in the Premiership.

‘‘It seems to me that Newcastle have got to win the three home games they’ve got left to give themselves a chance, but again it is the old story from me. We still need points, too.”