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The former Newcastle United captain was impressed with the Magpies in Saturday's win at Ipswich Town.
The Sweden international has scored in four of United’s last five fixtures and racked up a first hat-trick for the club when he bagged a treble in Saturday’s convincing win at Ipswich Town. In securing the match ball at Portman Road, Isak took his goalscoring tally to 11 goals in 18 games in all competitions so far this season and only Mo Salah, Erling Haaland and Cole Palmer have scored more goals in the Premier League during the first four months of the campaign.
The former Real Sociedad man understandably received the plaudits for his prolific display in Suffolk - but Magpies icon Shearer pointed to Eddie Howe finding a solution to a key issue in the heart of his side as integral to his side’s win. In recent games, the United manager has dropped Italy international Sandro Tonali into a deeper role in midfield and that has allowed captain Bruno Guimaraes to push forwards in a similar position to the one that he featured in during his early months as a Magpie.
Shearer praised the £95m duo for the performances against Ipswich and described both Tonali and Guimaraes as ‘absolutely superb’ as they showed why they are viewed as integral players within Howe’s squad.
He told BBC Sport: “In recent games what he has done is put Tonali in the six role and move Bruno Guimaraes a little further forward and given him a little bit more freedom to get him into forward positions. It’s certainly helped both players and more importantly the team. He (Tonali) will sit there and I think he feels more important in that role, I think he’s a better player because he can do that. A lot of the time when he gets the ball within one or two touches he likes and wants to play the ball forwards, which for the players in the forward positions is much, much better. He has to do his work defensively as well and he has certainly done that in recent games.
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“The understanding of both of them in their roles, I think was absolutely superb. This time it’s Bruno Guimaraes getting on the ball and him passing it forwards and his awareness, he knows what he’s doing and say what you want about Ipswich and the way they play out but he was very clever in what he had to do in that role.”
The Magpies will be back in action on Boxing Day when Aston Villa are the visitors to St James Park.
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