Who would be the England football manager?

Kevin Keegan nailed his support for Alan Shearer to the mast by declaring that despite the soap opera at Newcastle he was standing by his captain.

And as if to underline his confidence in the striker's ability to do the European Championship business in Luxemburg and Poland over the next few days, he left Andy Cole out of the squad.

Then what happens.... Cole pokes him in the eye by scoring four goals in Manchester United's crushing 5-1 win against Newcastle United at Old Trafford while at the other end Shearer has a stinker.

How the Manchester fans loved it!

"Shearer for England," they chanted in derision, and then just in case you had missed the irony, they added: "Let's all laugh at Shearer."

Certainly for Cole it was a very good day at the office indeed, though after the match he nobly refused to take advantage of his scoring rampage.

"Kevin Keegan has picked his squad. There are other strikers in front of me and that's it, I don't want to talk about England," he said.

But the message still comes over loud and clear and Cole himself admits: "I believe I am getting better and adding to my game. I want to improve season by season and some of the players have told me that they think I have gained a yard of pace this year. My partnership with Dwight Yorke can only get better. Our movement improves and if he scores I am the first to congratulate him."

Manager Alex Ferguson also refused to enter the England debate over Cole, except to say that Kevin Keegan was in a very difficult position with four fantastic strikers already in his squad so there was no discredit on Andy Cole whose finishing in this match he described as fantastic.

He added: "His goals were clinical, especially his third and fourth. The important thing for us though was that by scoring his goals today he made it clear that being left out of the England squad had not affected him. I agree he is a better player than ever now, and I have been saying so for some time."

Cole got his first goal with the help of Paul Scholes after 14 minutes but Newcastle equalised with an own goal by Henning Berg under pressure from Duncan Ferguson. It was Cole's next goal just a minute into the second half that really turned the game though because it led to the dismissal of Nikolaos Dabizas.

The Newcastle centre back claimed Cole had pushed him over before breaking clean through to score, a complaint he pursued with such vigour that referee Jeff Winter gave him a red card. Newcastle, without a manger following the resignation of Ruud Gullit, were in enough disarray without asking them to play against the European champions for half the match with 10 men.

Although they had shown spirit in the first half it rapidly ebbed away and Cole helped himself to further goals in the 64th and 71st minutes. Ryan Giggs got the fifth with generous help from Cole.

Cole said later that he was "gutted" for the plight of his old club, but I am sure that won't be the thought uppermost in his mind as he carries the match ball home and thinks: "Pick the bones out of that one Kevin Keegan!"