By Harry Pratt

PAUL GASCOIGNE went on the counter-attack yesterday. He weighed in with his support for under-fire Alan Shearer after the England captain was hit with an FA disrepute charge following the ugly clash with Leicester City's Neil Lennon last week.

The Newcastle striker has now been ordered to explain his actions at Filbert Street, where Sky TV cameras clearly caught him booting Northern Ireland star Lennon in the face. Although the referee missed the controversy, the FA have since responded to the calls for Shearer to be disciplined by hauling him into the Lancaster Gate dock.

But his England team-mate, Gascoigne, only too aware about the pressure of the Press, has hit back by citing the episode as the latest in a long line of malicious attempts by the media to rattle the national squad in the build-up to a major tournament.

And yet, according to the £4.35m Middlesbrough midfielder, it will actually have the opposite effect come the big kick-off in France, with the squad now set to close ranks amid all the adverse publicity and become an even tighter unit as a result.

It happened in 1990 before we went to Italy and it happened before Euro 96, too, explained Gazza. It's sad the media want to upset the England squad but that's what this is all about. It's the same every time we come into a tournament.

People are out there trying to shoot us down all the time and they've been waiting for the chance to have a crack at Alan for ages. He never did anything wrong for so long but the newspapers have been waiting for one tiny chance, such as this. Alan just