It won’t have gone unnoticed or uncommented upon in the Toon dressing room that Shola Ameobi has a far superior Champions League scoring record than Shearer and while the captain is always happy when the team wins he is keen to change that.
"It wasn’t particularly nice missing two huge games. I had to sit tight and watch the games on the television and hopefully I have learned something from that," Shearer told a press conference.
"It will certainly be great to be back in action, particularly with the way things have gone for us. The whole squad is buzzing.
"The standard from all the players has been very high and everyone has been going well. I just hope we can keep it up.
"It would be great to improve my goalscoring record in the Champions League, but that alone does not motivate me.
"What motivates me is trying to get into the next phase. It will be great if I can do that and score some goals as well."