The current Schalke striker toiled at Cardiff but now he is showing why Southampton reportedly wanted him.
Southampton are renowned for their ability to spot a diamond in the rough. Yet eyebrows were raised when the Daily Mail reported in 2016 that the Saints had sent scouts to watch a rangy, Austrian centre-forward by the name of Guido Burgstaller.
The then-26-year-old may have averaged just shy of a goal every other game in the German second tier with Nurnburg but it was not his scoring record in the 2.Bundesliga that had fans puzzled.
After all, Burgstaller’s previous stint on British shores hardly marked him down as a forward of Premier League quality.
Signing a three-year deal with Cardiff City in 2014 after impressing in his homeland with Rapid Vienna, Burgstaller was gone within six months, scoring just once and playing just five times for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side.
But perhaps this was simply too much, too soon. Burgstaller is the very definition of a ‘late bloomer’. Aged 27, he is only now playing in the top tier of a major European league for the first time, having swapped Nurnburg for the Bundesliga’s perennial underachievers Schalke in January after netting 14 in 18 in the first half of the season.
An instinctive penalty box poacher, he may have only contributed four goals since arriving at the Veltins Arena but, as his superbly taken goal in the Europa League quarter-final first leg draw with Borussia Monchengladbach proved, Burgstaller will hit the target if given half a chance; something he was never truly afforded in South Wales.
And while Manolo Gabbiadini’s prolific form hardly suggests Southampton are in need of a striker, Burgstaller could have offered a vital alternative with Charlie Austin still on the sidelines.
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