In their narrow 1-0 defeat to Leeds United last night, Slaven Bilic made one notable change to his West Bromwich Albion side that were 2-0 victors over Queens Park Rangers just three days before.
That absentee was summer signing Charlie Austin who arrived at the Hawthorns with a great weight of expectation after a relatively successful time in the Premier League.
He joined the side for just short of £4 million from Southampton at the beginning of the season and hasn’t yet got off the mark in the Championship campaign, recording just one assist from his first six appearances in the division.
He has, however, got off the mark for his new club in the Carabao Cup. The striker scored one of the easiest goals of his career on his debut for the Baggies in a crushing 2-1 defeat to Millwall that saw them knocked out of the competition at the first hurdle.
Since then, Austin hasn’t found the net once and has struggled to make an impact on the supporters at the club. £8 million signing Kenneth Zohore has two already and was brought on from the bench at Elland Road to impact the game instead of Austin.
The loan striker position for the Leeds defeat was handed to Hal Robson-Kanu who had staked his claim to Bilic after some useful substitute appearances.
In turn, West Brom had the majority of the possession in the game but only created half the amount of chances in comparison to their promotion rivals.
Bilic, though, has revealed to the Birmingham Live that he only didn’t make an appearance against Leeds because he is saving him for Saturday. The Croatian strongly hinted that Austin would be back in the first team for West Brom’s home encounter with Cardiff City.
He said: “Hal was very good when he came on against QPR, he is in good form.”
“Charlie has been playing all the time and we took into account he would be playing three games in one week.
“We wanted to save him a bit for Saturday.”
The verdict
Robson-Kanu had his chance. If he had scored at Elland Road yesterday, Austin’s first team place would have surely been lost for at least two more games.
He didn’t, however neither has Austin who has had four more starts than the Welshman to do so.
Austin is a big-name player that will score goals when given time. His starts in the Premier League were sporadic which may have knocked his ability to consistently perform and score goals.
With a grand total of 66 goals in 134 Championship appearances, it would be hard to leave out the striker for too long, even if he is experiencing a drought.