West Ham Chairman, David Gold has suggested Charlie Austin wasn’t the bargain some Hammers fans think Southampton got when they snapped him up on a four and a half year deal for a transfer fee believed to be £4m.
Hammers manager Slaven Bilic last week confirmed West Ham were no longer interested in signing the former QPR striker but confirmed the Irons were interested last summer before pursuing other options. Speaking at a pre-match press conference, Bilic was asked whether West Ham would rekindle their interest in Charlie Austin:
“He is a good player and he has been linked with most of the clubs when they got relegated because of his record and everything. So we were also among those clubs in the summer but we have chosen other options, now we are not looking for that type of player”
After the signing by Southampton David Gold weighed into debate over the weekend by responding to a supporter who had Tweeted him saying ‘4 mill is a bargain Austin is a brilliant player one of the best English strikers there is right now.’
Gold’s response was ‘Is he a bargain if his wages are £100,000 per week? dg’.
Austin’s estimated annual £5.2m per wages over four and a half years will total £23.4m so a hefty £27.4m investment for the Saints for a striker who is currently injured and once failed a medical at Hull.
Strange comments considering they are paying Carroll at least 80k a week which would be £4,160,000 per year and the transfer fee was more than 4 times that of Austin, when you work out how much per game he has cost the club I think the obvious question is whether a player that plays 10 games a season is worth one that would play 30 games a season… I like AC and if he was fit all year round I would say he wasn’t a bad investment but unfortunately for him he has had a lot of bad luck with injuries and is unlikely to ever repay what was invested in him.
Succinctly put. Problem is we need a 15 plus goalscorer if the team is going to have real chances of a top 6 finish this season and indeed any sort of challenge next season when I suspect it will be far tougher to get a top 6 finish. So be it now or Summer we will need to find one hardly an easy job in the first place as we have found with Valencia and Carroll with considerable funds paid for them and little in terms of goals to show for it.
So the question is what does Sullivan expect to pay as a transfer fee for such an acquisition and what does he expect the wage to be for that player. If you ask me its not going to be less than £10 mill (and thats being very optimistic) and unless its a total punt like Sakho the wages won’t be less than £75,000 per week surely and very possibly more if you have anyone with a proven goal scoring record at all in a top league and certainly more with the record that Austin has here.
So on that basis we likely miss out on probably a one off chance of a top finish this season, while if his words are to be taken at face value we have no real intension of investing in a player even in the Summer who is more than an outside shot at being that sort of player we sorely need to push ahead. Sometimes you have to grab opportunities when the opening is there, while if you simply plan for the following season all the time those opportunities have usually gone before you reach the level required to take advantage of them. As they say tomorrow never comes.
Re Carroll comment, he is on a £85K per week basic and I think that’s the point. Once bitten twice shy! Not many would call Carroll a bargain now. Liverpool paid £35m for him so even less so. Hindsight is a wonderful thing
Hi Sean, I understand the reply, I just don’t understand why DG had to make a comment or DS previously, if you don’t want the player don’t respond to comments about him, Austin’s playing and scoring record have been good despite his knee having no ligaments according to DS.. He will score goals at Southampton and no doubt play more often than AC. The reality I think is that he is not as mobile or quick as SB would like to play in his system, although more mobile than Jelly. Either way if SB doesn’t want him then fair enough.
The difference is hindsight in regards to buying Carroll and foresight in regards to Austin’s injuries
They say never look a gift horse in the mouth ! As it will bite you ?
What are the chances Austin scoring against us in a couple of weeks time ?? 1/3 on ?
There’s bad blood here with the Dave’s which is bo££ox !! Why get into needless remarks when all he had to say was good luck to the lad !
We are desperate for a centre forward at present , 4 mill ? Bargain imo ! Valencia is to lightweight for a c/f I think he hasn’t delivered the goals for 15 mill ? Has he , I like the lad but it isn’t working out ! And carol is injured again , sakho is out for another 3-4 weeks,
Payet can’t do it all on his own so you must say Austin was a missed opportunity !
Sakho / Austin combo would be frightening as would Austin /carol !
City up next ? Valencia or jelly ?????
Hope dimi is on blob as we are going to need a miracle going forward !
So the question is who is coming in ?? And is obiang out to fund it ?
What’s the gossip Hugh from the source ,as there seems to be a lot of interest in the lad from Italy , I hope its paper talk but he isn’t being played enough and he always makes way,
Why take obiang off instead of noble on Saturday baffeled a lot of people, he has more pace and more bite than noble! Tabloids and punters will be on our backs big time if we lose on Saturday, the customary decline after Xmas , blah blah blah .
Big big game , must not lose.
Exactly. Just wish the lad good luck and then just for once Mr Gold, bloody **** up and stop making yourself and our club look two bob.
Will he ever learn.
I see the whole game on Saturday & Obiang was running he’s heart out he shouldve took off Noble as Mr 360 degrees turn don’t cut it in the prem as for Messrs G & S please keep quiet on the Austin situation as I for 1 are abit sick & tired of we have no money to spend yawn yawn I don’t give a monkeys about the ffp & nor do alot of clubs esp Bournemouth who have spent & they get 11 thousand home game so please turn that record off why did we buy Jellyfish cos he’s a Croat he didn’t want to know us when he left Rangers to sign for the bin dippers a poor striker now I’d keep Zarate & flog him before no sell on. let’s do our business & let others do there’s as for Austin good luck to him wot ever the wages he’s on we got a donkey called Carroll funny how he got injured before the Geordie game again
just been discussing Austin with a colleague who supports Soton. When we looked at his goalscoring record – average a goal every 2 games played at pretty much every club he’s been at – he felt £4m represented decent value!
even if he plays 60% of the games in an average season his record suggests they’ll get 15 goals out of him.
Looking at Carroll v Austin with the benefit of hindsight:
£18m at £85k a week for not many games/goals looks very bad business.
£4m on £100k a week for a goal every other game looks much better business, but clearly still not for us!
that said, to really make an impact up the league we need to score more goals, and more consistently. league is usually won by the team who score the most. far less regularly by the team who concedes the least.
Carroll, Sakho,Valencia, Moses, Antonio, Jelavic… a spread of goals, but I’m not sure there’s ever going to be enough out of them.
What price for a Vardy, Kane, Lukaku, Giroud, Aguero, Costa… not scrabbling down at the £4m mark for sure!!