Strachan felt that the ex-Saints front man was the driving force behind Newcastle getting their passing game together. Newcastle looked very disjointed in the first twenty minutes, but Shearer's strength of presence made all the difference and his side rallied.
Despite the best efforts of James Beattie, Saints players couldn't do the same once they went behind.
"Shearer on their side, win, Shearer on our side, we win," said Strachan.
"It's as simple as that, the game is as simple as that.
"He put on a fantastic performance, a world-class performance and we couldn't handle it. That performance he does makes everybody in his side play better.
"It's his whole game. They should take that one as video for any young player and say 'This is the way you play centre-forward, a target-man centre-forward who'll score goals'.
"I'll not change my mind on that - I believe if he'd played for our side today, we would have beaten Newcastle.
"We had a good start. We created some good chances after the 1-0, and if we'd got another one, I think it could have been our day. But we didn't take our chances."
Strachan will be only too aware of Saints inability to push on after initial success. This applies as much to end of season form as for individual matches.
If we are a goal up, we lack the creativity and drive of getting a second. If we are one up towards the end of a game, we often lack the wits to control the game and run the clock down, without inviting huge amounts of pressure on our goal.
This is what makes us, at best, a midtable side. Our players have clear limitations and as this happens time after time, there is clearly a limit to how much they can improve. It's going to be a frustrating future for Strachan unless the players start raising their horizons seriously.