Yahoo News 'No such words' - Gary Lineker delivers Alan Shearer takedown over Aston Villa prediction
Gary Lineker brilliantly caught Alan Shearer red-handed trying to distort the facts around his pre-season prediction for Aston Villa.
Villa 's fourth-placed finish in the league this season and by extension qualification for next year's Champions League has certainly come as a shock to many. After all, the club were dicing with relegation when Unai Emery took over little over 18 months ago - it has been quite some turnaround.
Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Chelsea and Newcastle United who were all fancied instead have missed out at Villa's expense, and Shearer claimed to have foreseen this prior to the campaign's start last August.
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Challenging Lineker, who suggested otherwise on Friday's episode of The Rest is Football podcast, he said: "Hang on, hang on. I think you will find I said Aston Villa will have a great chance of breaking into the top four!"
Co-host Micah Richards was sceptical, but the Premier League's all-time top goalscorer reaffirmed he 'remembered it well'. To challenge, Lineker tasked the show's producer with skimming through the old files to uncover the truth.
Later on after praising the club's achievements, Lineker finally arrived with the verdict. "Alan, I have in front of me the evidence," he teased. "Remind me what you said a few minutes ago?"
Shearer confirmed: "I think I said something along the lines of ‘if there was one team that was going to break into the top four, it might be Aston Villa’."
However, this was far from correct. Lineker confirmed: "No such words came out of your mouth! I have it, they’re not terrible but there is no mention of the top four. Alan’s words: 'Challenging to do better than last year, Emery made clever signings, top six'."
Conceding he was not far wrong, the former striker-turned-pundit was left red-faced by the whole ordeal.
To end, Lineker quipped: "As always when you talk about your abilities and your goalscoring talent, you’re exaggerating slightly!"
