WHILE Graeme Souness addresses the problem of his depleted defensive resources, he must also act with urgency to add to his attacking options and keep Newcastle’s Uefa Cup ambitions alive.

Alarmingly, captain Alan Shearer, whose two goals yesterday secured the Magpies’ safe passage to the semi-finals of the Intertoto Cup — they will face Spain’s Deportivo La Coruna — is now the only fit striker at Souness’s disposal.

With Craig Bellamy and Patrick Kluivert having departed Tyneside, and Shola Ameobi sidelined following hip surgery, the Newcastle manager has now lost 21-year-old Michael Chopra, who suffered concussion yesterday after an aerial collision with visiting goalkeeper Dusan Pernis.

Shearer moved closer to eclipsing the legendary Jackie Milburn as the Magpies’ record goalscorer in this second leg against the Slovakian minnows. He headed home twice after the break and took his haul for the club to 194, only seven short of beating Milburn’s 200 mark.

Souness, however, who has not given up hope of luring French striker Nicolas Anelka from Fenerbahçe, despite the Turks’ apparent insistence on a £10m-plus fee, is outwardly relaxed about the situation.

He said: “As we speak, Alan is our only fit striker, but we’re in the market and hopefully we’ll soon have more than one who’s fit.”

Shearer was denied one of the goals in the first-leg victory at the Mestsky Stadium when Uefa subsequently awarded it to Charles N’Zogbia. But Souness stressed: “There was no dispute about whose goals they were here and I’m delighted for him.”

Shearer struck first after 72 minutes when he nodded in James Milner’s left-wing corner and added a second from Stephen Carr’s cross.

Seemingly simmering with injustice after his docked goal, Shearer soon made his presence felt, intelligently laying the ball off for Jermaine Jenas to shoot over from around 20 yards. Shearer then saw an opening for himself, but dragged his effort wide before Milner forced Pernis to effect a fingertip save with a raking drive.

In the 24th minute, Jenas’s curling free-kick came back off the crossbar, with Amdy Faye heading the rebound wide. And moments later Jenas was on the end of a Lee Bowyer free-kick, but saw his header saved by the alert Pernis.

There was a further worry for Souness when Jenas failed to re-emerge for the second half with back trouble, which could make him doubtful for Wednesday’s first leg in La Coruna.

Chopra took his place, but it was an uncomfortable introduction for the striker, who within a minute of the restart was felled after challenging Pernis.

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