Reality bites for new Newcastle United boss Alan Shearer
As Second Comings go, it was second-rate.
No pre-match recognition of the fevered hordes; no symbolic right-arm salute of the sort with which he used to wheel away from the Gallowgate End.
Just a routine prophesy of survival via programme note, and then down to the grim reality.
The grim reality is this: Alan Shearer's eight games have now become seven, and Newcastle find themselves deeper in the relegation mire.
No-one at St James's Park, not the 52,112 in attendance, and least of all Shearer himself, will any longer subscribe to the notion that his club is too big to go down.
True, a home defeat by Guus Hiddink's resurgent Chelsea is not an entirely fair benchmark by which to judge Newcastle's prospects for the remainder of the season.
There will be far more answers next week, when Shearer takes his club to the Britannia Stadium for an all-together more crucial relegation clash with Stoke.
But there was enough evidence for Shearer today to realise just what a fight he faces: not least the chronic lack of self-belief that has afflicted the Magpies through this most tortuous of campaigns.
The hesitancy at the back which saw Fabricio Coloccini meekly give the ball away for Frank Lampard's opener. The lack of bite up front despite Shearer's sterling message of support this week.
Shearer learned today that messages of support will only get his sides so far. They will not be enough, alone, to rouse Michael Owen from his goal drought, nor Kevin Nolan from his midfield torpor.
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