I think he'll leave, but if he does stay we would be one of the favourites for promotion imo.
People have bemoaned the amount of bad business done by the Rs in recent years, but NOT selling Charlie Austin would be the worst of the lot.
We are not in a position to p!ss away £15m in a year when promotion will be unlikely and not necessarily a good thing and when we might get clobbered with a significant fine.
IMO, the only similarity between the Charlie Austin and Loic Remy situations would be if they both left towards the end of the window.
The club had expected Remy to stay and it was too late to sign a reasonable replacement. That is not the case here. The club expect Charlie to be sold but won't be pressured into selling him on the cheap. They are signing others, even if none of them are direct replacements for Charlie ... yet.
The news that the Sterling sale will bring in around £9m also means that we have some cash to play with and signing new players is not dependent on offloading Charlie as soon as possible (and not holding out for the asking price) in order raise money.
I expect him to go for the asking price or near as damn it. I think that the club does too.
If we get 10 million for Phillips (from WBA), surely it it is only time before we get 15 for Charlie.
I have a feeling the business will be done in the next week.
I would like to dream, but feel Charlie is ready to go, now his main man OBZ has gone
If we get 10 million for Phillips (from WBA), surely it it is only time before we get 15 for Charlie.
I have a feeling the business will be done in the next week.
I would like to dream, but feel Charlie is ready to go, now his main man OBZ has gone
Spot on Eamon. I think we might play better football without Charlie too, not that the quality of play was his fault.People have bemoaned the amount of bad business done by the Rs in recent years, but NOT selling Charlie Austin would be the worst of the lot.
We are not in a position to p!ss away £15m in a year when promotion will be unlikely and not necessarily a good thing and when we might get clobbered with a significant fine.
IMO, the only similarity between the Charlie Austin and Loic Remy situations would be if they both left towards the end of the window.
The club had expected Remy to stay and it was too late to sign a reasonable replacement. That is not the case here. The club expect Charlie to be sold but won't be pressured into selling him on the cheap. They are signing others, even if none of them are direct replacements for Charlie ... yet.
The news that the Sterling sale will bring in around £9m also means that we have some cash to play with and signing new players is not dependent on offloading Charlie as soon as possible (and not holding out for the asking price) in order raise money.
I expect him to go for the asking price or near as damn it. I think that the club does too.
People have bemoaned the amount of bad business done by the Rs in recent years, but NOT selling Charlie Austin would be the worst of the lot.
We are not in a position to p!ss away £15m in a year when promotion will be unlikely and not necessarily a good thing and when we might get clobbered with a significant fine.
IMO, the only similarity between the Charlie Austin and Loic Remy situations would be if they both left towards the end of the window.
The club had expected Remy to stay and it was too late to sign a reasonable replacement. That is not the case here. The club expect Charlie to be sold but won't be pressured into selling him on the cheap. They are signing others, even if none of them are direct replacements for Charlie ... yet.
The news that the Sterling sale will bring in around £9m also means that we have some cash to play with and signing new players is not dependent on offloading Charlie as soon as possible (and not holding out for the asking price) in order raise money.
I expect him to go for the asking price or near as damn it. I think that the club does too.

Don't think it matters for Charlie if he stays or goes this summer. Go = he gets a Premier League contract and game time, stay = he pockets a large windfall next summer that eclipses anything he could hope to land now.
This decission is up the the club alone, gamble on promotion and risk losing out on £12-15 million, or sell now and make a profit for once. For Charlie and his agent it is win/win either way in my opinion.
Completely disagree with this, he has just broken into the England set up and will likely only keep his place if he is scoring goals in the Prem, there is too much competition to have a Championship player in the squad, secondly he would likely get a bigger payday in going to another club as part of a transfer from us then as a free agent as he has not put in a transfer request so it would basically be us 'forcing' him out and therefore he would get a % off the fee as a payoff from his current contract!
Compared to pocketing the whole transfer fee himself in twelve months? If he couldn't get a look in the England side with all the injuries and in meaningless friendlies recently then surely a realistic guy like Charlie know playing for England is utopia under the current set up.
There wouldn't be a transfer fee in 12 months, he would get a signing on fee which he would also get now but he would also get compensation from us now for selling his contract. He has had a taste of being in the England squad, if you think that he doesn't want to do everything he can to get into the team then you are the most deluded person on this board!
The signing on fee for a free agent would be higher but not in the same ball park as the transfer fee. You're also forgetting that he is on fairly modest wages with us(reportedly £28k) and if he went to the likes of Newcastle he could possibly be getting more like £60-£70k which would be an extra £2m for him over the next 12 months! Also I think you are underestimating his desire to play at the top level, when he spoke about being in the England set up you could see how much he wanted more of it, all he can do is score goals at the highest level to force his way into the team and he can't do that with us!