Saints’ Austin emerges as new Vardy
Print Edition
AS the goals have dried up for Jamie Vardy at Leicester, another former non-league striker has embarked on a hot scoring streak for a Premier League club.
Charlie Austin made it seven goals in six games in all competitions for Southampton with a double in Sunday’s 3-1 victory over Burnley that took the south-coast club up to eighth in the standings.
In a career that began outside England’s four professional leagues, Burnley provided the 27-year-old Austin with one of his stepping stones to the world’s richest soccer competition.
Austin was a bricklayer working a full day on a building site before playing on a part-time basis for Poole Town in the ninth tier until 2009. It took third-tier club Swindon to pluck Austin from obscurity, for Burnley to take him up another league and then QPR to give him a shot at the Premier League.
Still, doubts persisted around Austin’s fitness. Southampton was able to snap him up for 4 million pounds (then US$6 million) in January. What a bargain that now seems.
The case looks increasingly compelling for Austin to return to the England squad for the first time since 2015 when he failed to make his international debut.
Particularly if England interim manager Gareth Southgate is comparing Austin’s form with Vardy’s for Leicester when it comes to selecting players to face Scotland and Spain next month.
After a 24-goal haul last season, Vardy has only scored twice this campaign and his goal drought reached seven matches on Saturday as Leicester’s feeble title defense continued with a loss at Chelsea.
Austin and his teammates will now travel to Italy full of confidence for one of the biggest games in the club’s history — a Europa League game against Inter Milan on Thursday.
“This team will always create chances, it’s a dream for any striker,” Austin said. “I am in the right place at the right time.”
In the day’s other Premier League match, Watford beat Middlesbrough 0-1.
In Italy, Inter Milan captain Mauro Icardi can do no right, it seems, and a missed penalty in a 1-2 defeat by Cagliari in Serie A won’t help at all.
Icardi had a fantastic start to the season, with six goals in seven matches, but angered a section of fans known as “Ultras” at Inter with comments in his autobiography, which the supporters called “lies” in a lengthy statement.
The Argentina forward attempted to placate the fans with a statement of his own on social media but he was jeered as he walked out ahead of the match, and was greeted in the San Siro by banners insulting the player. A threatening banner was also left outside Icardi’s house.
Inter vice-president and club great Javier Zanetti has hinted Icardi could even lose the captaincy.
The situation has got so bad that Inter fans even cheered after Icardi sent his penalty woefully wide of the right post in the 26th minute after he had been pushed over by Bruno Alves.
In Spain, former Italy manager Cesare Prandelli got off to a winning start after Valencia grabbed a 2-1 win at Sporting Gijon, which lifted the team out of the relegation zone.
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