How much did Leicester pay Brighton for whatshisname? How much did Palace pay for Campbell? How much did Southampton pay for Long (and Hull to West Brom)? Not to mention Fulham paying around £12m for an average championship forward from Leeds. Liverpool, I believe, wanted £12m for Borini. Based on all of those valuations, Charlie Austin would cost a minimum of £15m & if required in January that would probably be closer to the twenty mark.
Actually Col, this story was on all the other boards last week. From memory, what I gathered (rightly or wrongly), was that Charlie is under contract until June 2016 & that the club were making an offer to extend that contract now. Unsurprisingly, Charlie wanted time to consider his options & has turned down the initial offer. It may well be that we will offer him even more. The chances of the club agreeing to accept an offer for him in January I would consider to be on the remote side, unless the offer was viewed as far to good to turn down. I'm not even sure that he could leave on a Bosman in 2016 if the club have offered a new & improved contract. Others would know far more than me as to whether that has any effect.
He can leave on a Bosman even if offered an improved contract, once a contract is six months from expiring he can talk to other clubs regardless...
And to think there was concern about signing Austin in the first place because of his supposed dodgy knees
Austin's Dad wouldn't be a Dad if he had done this Complete rubbish IMO Makes no difference to me if he were to go Good luck to him if this rubbish was true ... QPR currently haven't got what I call a QPR team .. its a team full of Harold's excuses IMO
Just assuming for the sake of debate that this is true, what hope do we ever have for pushing on towards mid table stability? We need to have home grown talent who genuinely are committed to The Badge, new stadium and a forward think manager who is also a great tactician. I'm worried I may never see that combination at QPR.
Charlie has a top strike record but like Lambert he looks way off where a top 4 PL striker needs to be. Apart from the Man C game, when he's not finishing Charlie reminds me more of an overfed baby with underdeveloped legs than a PL striker. I 'm happy as his goals mean everything, and now Liverpool have bought Lambert I suppose their ambition is about as ours, but why would they want 2 like that when they can splash their cash on another Aguero or Suarez.
Surely it's the opposite of being a mercenary if he turns down a massive pay rise so he can eventually sign for (historically at least) a big club
Most telling thing about that is you said another Aguero or Suarez but didn't actually name an actual viable alternative. ..................... 30m is the minimum because that what's we would need to spend to give us a half decent chance of replacing his goals. We are 15 games into the season and Fer is the only other player to have more than 1 goal. If that's too much for them, well then great go and find someone better The odd bargain exists like Sakho at West Ham but that's a rareity. If people are willing to accept 15m would like to know who you are going to spend that on who is equally as good as Charlie because if the replacement ain't as good then why would you sell him for that price? Yeah he's only played 12 games in the prem but he's done exactly what I knew he would. He's in the top 5 most natural goal scorers in the league
I agree and hope we don't sell him. And unless Liverpool's ambition is lower than it was I doubt he will go there, there are far better quality strikers around the globe than Charlie if they will pay that kind of money.
He's better than Lambert and still improving. And if we were offered a straight swap with Ballotelli most Rangers fans would keep Austin He'd be better off staying with us for a couple of years developing his all round game then signing for a bigger team that will be able to guarantee him Champions League football
Lambert had peaked and couldn't get in the Southampton side at the end of last season. The fact that Liverpool bought him says a lot about Liverpool - the League table this season ain't lying and shows their summer signings haven't been successful. If Liverpool bought Austin the rest of the top Clubs would laugh at them, never mind the rest of Europe.
If it doesn't bother you then fair enough. Just don't start wondering when QPR becomes a byword for a joke within the wider footballing community. We're half way there already with the farce of the last few years so I suppose we might as well finish the job
