ROBERT REPAYS ROBSON
Newcastle Utd 4 Tottenham 0
Robert 35, 55
Shearer 59, 66
Premier League, December 13, 2003
BY MATT BOZEAT
ALAN SHEARER scored his 100th and 101st goals for Newcastle at St James’ Park in a trouncing of Tottenham in December, 2003.
But that was not the story.
The match is remembered for a pair of jaw-dropping strikes from the left boot of a player who was only declared fit during the warm-up!
Laurent Robert, a £9.5million signing from Paris Saint-Germain, had been awake the night before the match with a temperature.
Newcastle boss Bobby Robson said: “We checked him out and decided what we would do was see how he felt in the warm-up.
“I went out to see how he was and he said he’d like to try. I thought we’d take a risk...”
Robert had his critics on the Gallowgate, but after 35 minutes they were cheering him.
The ball looped towards the Frenchman around 25 yards out after team-mate Shola Ameobi had been blocked by Ledley King’s challenge.
It was barely a half-chance for Robert, given how far out he was and the angle he faced, but, showing textbook technique, he swept a sweetly struck left-foot volley just under Kasey Keller’s crossbar.
Following that, the home crowd shouted ”Shoot!” whenever Robert got the ball.
And on 55 minutes, he followed their advice, after taking Gary Speed’s pass down on his chest.
Robert was more than 30 yards out from Spurs’ goal when he hit the ball, sending it flying past Keller and into the top corner.
It was a strike at least the equal of his first – both goals feature in fans’ lists of best goals scored at St James’ Park – but Robert was not finished there.
Only four minutes later, he teed up Shearer to stab in Newcastle’s third and complete his century of goals at St James’ Park.
Shearer (left) went on to net a fourth from another Robert cross as Spurs fell apart.