I must admit that I don't know much about Austin as I haven't seen him play. I can only go by the few times I have seen him on FLS, and I have been impressed. it is fairly difficult to say whether he is good enough for BPL cos he has only performed against Chumpionship teams. He does seem to possess an edge that Fryup lacks. Question... is Sone still injured, and if so when is he scheduled to return?
13 in 29 from his wiki. He didn't really have enough time to score many more. He's only been in the football league for two seasons and now Palace have given him a shot at the prem. Seems like decent progression to me.
He looks half decent but I'll reserve my judgement for after a few games because imo £4.5 million should guarantee PL experience/goals. This is a gamble. It's also weird that Burnley have only gotten 76pts out of 67 games or so when he played but 45 pts from 25 games when he didn't play.
Poor signing IMO for that money, we could get far more established from elsewhere, there's still a lot of question marks over Charlie's head, and I'm not convinced he's up to it. One of those gambles, if it comes off we could end up with a player that would have cost us twice as much if not more. If it doesn't we've just pissed 4.5 million (only just shy of our record transfer fee which crippled us) down the ****ter. Obviously depends who else we get in, if we sign an established striker to take the weight off Charlie's shoulders, this signing already looks better.
I don't regard less than a season in the Championship as being proof of anything. Just because Palace have taken an unbelievable Hail Mary on him doesn't mean he has proved himself. Take it to the next level if a player scores two goals in his first game in the Championship and is then transferred to a Premier League side, does that represent progression? Austin has proved himself at League One and Championship level with sustained success.
I think he will prove to be a good signing, yes it's a calculated gamble whether he can step up to EPL level, but for me well worth taking. Shane Long has done well at WBA, and no reason why Austin cannot emulate him. Also playing with better players than he was at his previous clubs, should improve the service he gets.
Think he'll just need an experienced P/L striker to play alongside him, just to take the initial pressure off him. Maybe Odemwingie.
Think you need to take a closer look at how the new TV deal has re-inflated the price of "Guaranteed Premier League Experience/Goals"
the supply we can give him is fantastic and he should be amazing up alongside Sone. I genuinely cannot wait for the season to get underway, who else do we need? I mean we have a Keeper and a striker covered. Any more ideas about who else we can get? Another Keeper and another couple of strikers, what about midfield? our defense looks solid.
I agree with this although a loan signing might be more appropriate as we will probably need to spend £2m ish on a holding midfielder like Cattermole or Palacios.
£4.5m for Austin is a gamble however imo a gamble worth taking. There are many championship strikers that have made the step up and been more than capable in the perm, just look at shlong, Holt, Rodriguez, Graham etc. And is style of play should be complimented perfectly with the service from Brady and Elmo. The only other this with the sizeable price tag is the pressure on his (inexperienced) shoulders, so an experienced prem striker should be brought in on a free or loan to absorb some of this pressure.
I think we might well take a punt on a £1m striker from a foreign league, with another coming in on loan. Harper would be ideal as the No.2 keeper. Palacios as the defensive midfielder and we're not far off sorted.
