Sport

Always a formality

Newcastle 4 Olympiakos 0: Alan Shearer edged closer to Jackie Milburn's club-record 200 goals as Newcastle brushed aside Olympiakos…

Thu Mar 17 2005 - 00:00

Newcastle 4 Olympiakos 0: Alan Shearer edged closer to Jackie Milburn's club-record 200 goals as Newcastle brushed aside Olympiakos in their 100th European game to march into the Uefa Cup quarter-finals.

The 34-year-old fired home on 45 and 69 minutes to take his tally for Newcaste to 191 - 18 of them this season - as the Greek league leaders were brutally dismissed.

Trailing 3-1 from the first leg, there was little chance of Dusan Bajevic's side forcing their way back into the tie, but the way in which Newcastle dismantled them for the second time in a week to claim their eighth successive victory and their most comprehensive of the season at home was hugely impressive.

Kieron Dyer, who played as a makeshift striker alongside Shearer, started the ball rolling with a deftly back-heeled 18th-minute opener, and after Shearer had helped himself to his first goal of the night, Lee Bowyer fired home the third on 54 minutes.

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But it was the captain's second, a drive on the turn into the roof of the net after Jermaine Jenas had split the Olympiakos defence once again, which capped the night for a crowd of 32,163 at St James' Park and ensured that Graeme Souness - already the first Newcastle manager to take a club into March still in two cup competitions - will also be the first to take them into April in a similar position.

Newcastle had seen enough of Olympiakos even with 10 and nine men in Greece last week to know that the tie was not over.

But the visitors' hopes were ripped apart when, after Laurent Robert's free-kick had been only partially cleared, Bowyer headed over the top for Dyer to beat the offside trap and, dispensing with the formality of turning, back-heeled the ball audaciously past goalkeeper Antonios Nikopolidis.

NEWCASTLE: Given, Carr (Ramage 67), Taylor, Andrew O'Brien, Hughes, Jenas, Bowyer, Butt, Robert (N'Zogbia 58), Dyer (Milner 58), Shearer. Subs Not Used: Harper, Faye, Ambrose. Goals: Dyer 18, Shearer 45, Bowyer 54, Shearer 69.

OLYMPIAKOS: Nikopolidis, Mavrogenidis, Vallas, Anatolakis, Pantos, Maric, Stoltidis (Taralidis 79), Kafes, Djordjevic (Okkas 60), Giovanni (Filipakos 67), Castillo. Subs Not Used: Giannou, Schurrer, Kouloucheris, D'Acol. Booked: Vallas.

Referee: Konrad Plautz (Austria).