The 32-year-old, who had been forced to sit out the trips to Barcelona and Leverkusen through suspension, took out his frustrations on the Germans on his return, heading home on five and 11 minutes and then blasting a 35th-minute spot-kick past Jorg Butt.

It was Shearer’s first United hat-trick since he claimed five in an 8-0 thrashing of Sheffield Wednesday at St James’ Park in Sir Bobby Robson’s first home game in charge on September 19, 1999, and took his total for the season to 21.

United now have six points to take into their final Group A matches against Inter Milan in Italy in a fortnight’s time and Barca at St James’ Park later next month, but they have at least given themselves a chance, much to the delight of a crowd of 40,508.

Last season’s Champions League finalists, as they had been on their own turf last week, were well beaten despite showing signs of the form which almost took them all the way last time around with Jan Simak and substitute Marko Babic particularly impressive.

It was Babic who claimed his side’s 73rd-minute goal after linking well with the impressive Yildiray Basturk to leave coach Thomas Horster wondering what might have been had Shay Given not kept out Oliver Neuville’s 20th-minute penalty.

It had taken Shola Ameobi, in the absence of Shearer and Craig Bellamy, just 16 minutes to fire his side into a commanding lead at the BayArena last Tuesday night, but the returning skipper was not about to be upstaged by his understudy.

He had already scuffed a free-kick into the Leverkusen wall when he timed his run to perfection to meet a Gary Speed cross with a diving header which flew past the helpless Butt from point-blank range.

The keeper needed to produce a fine save to deny full-back Andy Griffin after a flowing attack down the Newcastle right, but the second goal arrived with 11 minutes gone.

Shearer cut out Cris’ poor pass and played Ameobi into space on the left, and when his cross was tipped by Butt on to the unfortunate defender as he recovered, the United skipper had the simplest of tasks to head into the empty net.

But if the Magpies thought they had done the hard work, they were soon reminded that they were still in a game with Carsten Ramelow, Neuville and Basturk starting to pull the strings.

The home side were forced to endure an uncomfortable 10-minute period, and they were almost made to pay with 20 minutes gone when Brazilian striker Franca went down under Given’s challenge and Danish referee Claus Bo Larsen pointed to the spot.

Neuville stepped up and aimed his shot low to the Given’s right, but the Irishman chose correctly and got down well to save.

Leverkusen paid for the miss 10 minutes before the break when Thomas Kleine returned the favour by tugging Kieron Dyer’s shirt and Shearer showed Neuville how to do it with a powerful shot into the roof of the net.

Leverkusen, who had replaced Ramelow with Babic at the break, rallied after the restart, but it was United who continued to create the better chances, Ameobi driving just wide from 22 yards after running from halfway on 55 minutes.

But the 21-year-old turned provider four minutes later as he left both Diego Placente and substitute Boris Zivkovic for dead before squaring for Shearer, who uncharacteristically dragged his shot wide.

Simak and Babic were doing their best to redress the balance, but Laurent Robert almost extended his side’s lead with a free-kick from all of 40 yards which Butt had to turn away at full stretch.

But as Newcastle started to relax, they surrendered their clean sheet and gave the Germans a glimmer of hope, although it took a fine move to do it.

Babic and Basturk played a neat one-two outside the box before the former raced in to lift a clever shot over Given and reduce the deficit.

That strike might have proved more than a consolation if Kleine’s 78th-minute header from a Simak corner had not come back off the crossbar, but as Robson made changes, United rode out a mini-crisis to wrap up the points.