Faz join the great Shearer debate

The former Blackburn Rovers defender (pictured) has joined the debate over the nation's underfire skipper as Kevin Keegan's men make their final preparations for Monday's clash against Portugal.

And the assistant England coach believes Shearer is ready to hit back at his critics in the only way he knows -- by hitting the back of the net!

"Not unusually in our country, we seem to build people up to knock them down," said Fazackerley, speaking to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph from England's team base in Spa, Belgium.

"The higher you go, the further you can fall and people seem to take great delight in doing that. But Alan will handle his critics in the only way he knows how which is to have a successful tournament and, hopefully, score the goals which will take us all the way." "You only have to look at his record to see how good he still is.

"He's scored one goal in every two internationals and he got 30 goals again in the Premier League last season.

"So there's no doubting his pedigree and anybody who does will suffer the consequences.

"And, mark my words,someone will feel the backlash over the course of the tournament."

Fazackerley believes England are in great shape going into the tournament, despite their indifferent performance against Malta last weekend.

"We've had two decent performances and results against Brazil and the Ukraine.

"I know it was an indifferentperformance out in Malta but, to be fair to the lads, they had built themselves up for the two big games as it were.

"But, generally speaking, I think we got what we wanted out of it, which was good results and decent performances, and now we are obviously looking to build on that for the tournament.

"The lads are looking forward to the real thing and cannot wait for it to start.

"It's been a long time coming and the nearer we get the anticipation grows greater and greater.

"But I believe we are ready to go and I think we've got a great chance."