Guus Hiddink has warned Alan Shearer that his experience as a leading player will not prepare him fully for management. Although the Chelsea manager expects Shearer's appointment to galvanise Newcastle United, beginning today at St James' Park in their Premier League fixture, he believes that former players who have not taken coaching courses are wrong to think they know it all. He also feels the most outstanding players, of which Shearer was one, can have trouble as managers in relating to others who are less gifted.

"It's not always when you are a top player that you are guaranteed to be a top manager as well," said Hiddink who, like Shearer, is in interim charge at his club until the end of the season. "Most of the time the players who have not reached the top level, they sometimes can imagine a little bit more what the difficulties are [of] not being top. Top players think everything, because of their talent, is going to happen automatically. For them, having the talent, it's rather normal. But for most players who are not that gifted, you have to help them out in practice in a different way and it's not a guarantee."

Hiddink said that in the Netherlands the appointments of top former players without the requisite qualifications could happen under exceptional circumstances, but in general they enrol first on fast-track coaching courses. Shearer follows Gareth Southgate, Paul Ince and Gianfranco Zola in taking a Premier League job without the supposedly mandatory Uefa Pro Licence.

"You must also add many tools to be a manager and that's why we set up a course [in the Netherlands] for ex-international players," said Hiddink. "It is not as long as the normal course, which is four to five years. It is instead one and a half years for people like Gullit, Rijkaard and Van Basten. First, the players react by saying 'Ah, it's not necessary, I know everything about football.' But when you start these courses, after two months they say, 'It's very interesting to know a lot more about managing a team or a club.'

"We aim [as managers] every day [at] a strategic, physical or tactical aspect of the game. That's the part where the new managers have to broaden their knowledge and they get interested. I have the experience of players saying, 'I know the game,' and that's what you have on top of your course. These are several aspects of being a manager. You can have your studies and your practice."

Hiddink, 62, who admits he is still learning new managerial tricks, has the utmost respect for Shearer, who scored twice in England's 4–1 victory over his Holland team at Euro 96. "I felt isolated that day," said Hiddink. "It was a big defeat but we were lucky to score our goal which got us through to the quarter-finals. Shearer is quite a personality and always gives his influence in a team."

Chelsea can expect to feel the force of it today. "Sometimes in these circumstances any input, especially from someone with a big personality and history with the club, is good," said Hiddink, who will be without Didier Drogba today due to an ankle problem. "He [Shearer] may have no experience of being a manager but in this phase of the league it is not always important to know how to do training sessions in a responsible way. It's more about the psychological and mental input from ex-players like him."

Hiddink feels that Shearer is in a "no-lose situation", while he reiterated his own intention to leave Chelsea even though he has just overseen Russia's unimpressive World Cup qualifying wins over Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein amid criticism and demands that he quit the job some pundits claim he is not fully focused on.