Former Manchester United midfielder Luke Chadwick has controversially suggested that signing Alan Shearer back in the day wouldn’t have made that big a difference to Sir Alex Ferguson’s side.
It’s well known in the football world that Shearer was twice targeted by Man Utd during the peak of his powers, with the former England international looking like he would have been a dream signing for almost any club in world football for much of his career.
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Despite that, Shearer never won as many major trophies as some of the greats, as he spent much of his career at boyhood club Newcastle instead.
Shearer ended up firing his way right to the top of the all-time Premier League scoring charts, and it’ll be a big ask for any player to ever overtake him.
Still, Chadwick thinks that even if Shearer had boosted his own career in terms of trophies by going to United, the ex-Red Devil is less sure it would have done a lot to change the fortunes of Ferguson’s side, who were hugely dominant in that period anyway.
“I’m not 100% sure how close the deal was, but obviously if you add Alan Shearer to the United squad it would make a huge difference in terms of what the player was,” Chadwick told CaughtOffside.
“But without being disrespectful to probably the best striker in Premier League history, the club did also have some very good strikers there at the time. So in terms of what the squad could’ve achieved with Alan Shearer … I’m not sure they under-achieved in that time anyway.
“Shearer would’ve been a huge addition to that team but it’s more of a question for Shearer who potentially could’ve won a huge amount of trophies, but he went to play for his boyhood team, the club that he loved, so it’s a tough question.”
Chadwick has previously heaped praise on Shearer, telling CaughtOffside earlier this month that he ranked him above the likes of Thierry Henry and Sergio Aguero as the best striker in the Premier League era.
The Newcastle legend was alongside Henry as one of the first two players named in the Premier League Hall of Fame this week.