Newcastle beat West Ham 3-1 at St-James Park. The victory had a lot to do with your excellent performance.

It was a great party, for our last home game of the season. The stadium was full to the brim, and coming on to the pitch really did give you a real will to win. Personally I had a very involved game. Two decisive passes and a goal. Just as it should be (laughs). I loved the atmosphere. The crowd sang my name, it was really great.

Can you tell us about the goals ?

For the first I managed to overlap on the left and got a cross in, which Shearer stuck away. For the second I took a chance on shooting and the keeper couldn't keep a hold of it, LuaLua pounced on the rebound to score. The third started with a long through ball from Solano. I beat my marker for speed, the keeper came out to meet me so I decided to try and chip him, instead I hit the post, but just managed to get in front of the defender to score.

The match had however got off to a bad start?

Yes, we conceded a goal after 20 minutes. We basically fell asleep defensively, but we got it together pretty quick and got an equaliser. I think then we suddenly felt a lot more liberated and went on to dominate the second half.

At 31, Alan Shearer, is still mixing it with the best of them. With his 23 goals, he's up with the leaders Hasselbaink et Van Nistelrooy. His staying power is impressive, every year he maintains his standards.

Alan is an out and out striker. He's always in the right position at the right time. He's very good in front of goal, but you have to say he gets great service (cracks up laughing). Kidding, of course. He's a typical centre forward. Sadly this season, he's missed 3 or 4 penalties, otherwise he surely would finish as top scorer. 

This weekend he again repeated his statement that he would not be returning to international football and not be making the trip to Japan and South Korea, yet all the while he's the leagues top scorer...

Well he clearly stated that he was finished with international football and you have to respect his decision. There are plenty of young players, like Owen, who have picked up where he left off and England has lots of good young strikers. 

The next match is the 11th May. How does your week look ?

Right now I'm in Montpellier. I'm planning on staying for a week to plan my son's christening. Training restarts next Tuesday. As per usual, I'll go to training with Montpellier, actually I was planning on being there tomorrow. I'll also go see my little brother, Bertrand. 

He's had a thigh injury for a month and a half, which is why we haven't seen him in the first team. Well that's it for today. As there's no match this week we've planned the next interview for next Monday, however if anything exciting happens I'll give you a call. Cheers 





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