Feature: Ruud Gullit returns to St James' Park today. As the new manager of Feyenoord, Gullit is coming back to the stadium where his last job in club football ended so dramatically - in a hail of rain, rants and defeat by Sunderland.

Once again, Gullit will be in the same building as Alan Shearer.

Assuming Gullit and Shearer bump into each other at some point in the next 48 hours during the Newcastle-Gateshead Cup, the meeting will interest more than just themselves. Every onlooker will want to see their handshake - Shearer said there would be one.

But Bobby Robson will observe it more keenly than most, or at least he should, because for Gullit-Shearer 1999 read Robson-Shearer 2004.

There is more to this than an easy phrase. Amid the tangible buoyancy at Newcastle United created by the signings of Patrick Kluivert, Nicky Butt, James Milner - and with another to follow, possibly Miguel of Benfica - there is also tension.

Shearer would not say so in public but he has been distressed by Robson's willingness to sell Shearer to Liverpool this time last year. Shearer kept quiet about it last season but has been dumbfounded to learn that Robson was prepared to sell him to Celtic in the past few weeks.

Shearer is about to start his final season as a professional footballer and at the club he forsook Manchester United and a career of glory for. Robson is also about to start his last season as manager of Newcastle.

These two facts alone would heighten the suspense at St James' were matters harmonious, but the friction means that the inevitable season-long topic of succession has a jagged edge.

Robson is known to want to rest Shearer at times this season (and last); Shearer has said he wants to play in every game. The trip to the Far East was marked by Shearer's public statement about this.

On Thursday night on local radio, Shearer then revealed that one of the mandatory two coaching qualifications is his and that the other should be completed soon. Shearer said managing Newcastle was an ambition, though whether he would want it in his last playing season is another matter.

Speaking from Spain a few hours before Shearer went on radio, the Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd also addressed the issue of succession and began with a clarification of his reported insistence that the next manager will be a Geordie. "To use a Kevin Keegan phrase, I would love it to be a Geordie. But I didn't say it had to be a Geordie.

"We must ensure we have various options when the time comes. It would be irresponsible if we didn't. Newcastle are one of the top-10 clubs in the world and would we hold ourselves to one option? I don't think so."

Does that flexibility include the possibility that Robson might stay beyond next May? "No." There was a pause then and, as one expected, a mild softening of that response. Robson and Newcastle "would be in the Guinness Book of Records" if he was manager at 73, Shepherd joked, finally.

Of Shearer's management potential, Shepherd added: "I think he would be a good manager, I hope so. I think he's got that determination, I'd imagine he'd transfer everything from the football field into management. I'm sure he would."

It is not over-interpretation, therefore, to describe the "No" from Shepherd about Robson as emphatic and its delivery supported the theory that Shepherd and the club deputy chairman Douglas Hall have taken a long, cold look at Robson's five years on Tyneside and decided to get more involved.

There has been a restating of boardroom power at St James'. It has been striking that when Craig Bellamy was talking on Wednesday about the arrival of Kluivert, he said "the chairman has done brilliantly to get a player of his ability and stature".

The day before Paul Gascoigne called Butt's signing "one of chairman Freddy Shepherd's best". Robson's name went unmentioned.

Butt and Kluivert, it seems, are Shepherd-inspired buys. He, after all, will be looking after the shop when Robson departs and as Shepherd intimated, some of Robson's buys have not won him influence in the boardroom.

"Bob's spent about £70 million, more than Wenger," Shepherd said. "We have always backed the manager, we have been big spenders. But now we have got to make sure we get value for money - that's a nice way of putting it.

"(Carl) Cort didn't make it, (Hugo) Viana didn't make it, (Christian) Bassedas didn't make it. There comes a point where you say 'that's enough, we must have value for money'. We're not going to be anyone's mugs any more."

The aim for the season is "definitely top four" but a big factor in Robson's favour is Newcastle's relatively easy start. They play none of last season's top three until mid-November and a good beginning would transform the atmosphere.

The contrast with last season is that Newcastle were second bottom after six games; the season before, second bottom after five.

In that infamous Gullit season, 1998/'99, Newcastle had one point from five games after Sunderland came along and Shearer was left on the bench.

That finished Gullit on Tyneside.