Scottish Premiership rivals Rangers or Celtic may be able to lure Charlie Austin away from West Brom if the Championship outift are willing to sell.
West Bromwich Albion striker Charlie Austin has admitted that he could be tempted by a move to Scotland if Celtic or Rangers showed an interest, speaking to the Open Goal podcast.
At the age of 30, a much-travelled centre-forward may be running out of time if he wants to fulfil something of a personal ambition at one of the two Glasgow powerhouses. But Austin still has a few years left at the top level and, the older he gets, the cheaper he should become – in theory at least.
So, with Celtic and Rangers both facing a challenge as they look to keep hold of top scoring talismen Odsonne Edouard and Alfredo Morelos over the summer, Austin’s admission will surely not go unnoticed north of the border.
“The Old Firm derby is the pull isn’t it to play in Scotland. You want to win things as such too. If the opportunity came up would I go? I think so yeah,” said a man who joined West Brom last summer from Southampton in a £4 million deal.
Austin admits that, in another world, he would have joined Celtic seven years ago as a potential replacement for Gary Hooper before ending up at QPR instead.
“I was on the phone to my agent saying, ‘look is this going to happen?’ It’s something that I would have done. At the time, it was just me, my missus and my one child and I said, ‘let’s go’,” he adds.
“But nothing ever materialised after that and nothing has since.”
A reliable number nine who has hit double figures in league football for three different clubs, including an 18-goal Premier League season at QPR, it remains to be seen whether West Brom would be open to offers for Austin this summer.
He has scored a rather disappointing nine times in 30 matches for Slaven Bilic’s side and, if offered the opportunity to recoup that £4 million investment, a sale might well be considered. And even if Austin might have struggled to hit the heights in the last few seasons, this is an old-school poacher who could take Scottish football by storm.
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