‘He needs to go’, ‘Painful’ – Many West Brom fans slam one player in 0-0 draw v Brighton
West Brom fans have taken to Twitter to slam striker Charlie Austin after the goalless pre-season friendly against Brighton on Saturday.
Austin, 31, spearheaded Slaven Bilic’s attack at the AMEX Stadium with Hal Robson-Kanu away on international duty with Wales and Kenneth Zohore nowhere to be seen amid speculation surrounding his future in the Black Country.
The former Southampton striker scored 11 goals in 38 appearances across all competitions for the Baggies last season and was often criticised for his lack of fitness and mobility at the top of Bilic’s formation.
And it seems that fans were criticised by the same things on Saturday as Austin failed to make much of an impact on the south coast.
One fan even claimed that the 31-year-old is not at the level required for the Championship is one of the more ruthless takes.
Here is a selection of their tweets:
https://twitter.com/Tomdixo20314023/status/1302258696404246530
https://twitter.com/KelLancaster/status/1302245227898515457
Why does this happen every pre-season? Why do fans take pre-season friendlies so seriously?
It doesn’t matter what the result is in these games with the primary objective of them to get players up to full match fitness ahead of the competitive games kicking off.
West Brom begin their Premier League campaign next weekend when Leicester travel to The Hawthorns on Sunday the 13th.
By then, we hope that Bilic has been able to get in a new striker but Austin’s performance wasn’t anything unexpected or out of the ordinary.
Fans shouldn’t be too harsh on him after that performance because not many players were at their best in what was a drab 0-0 draw.
In other West Brom news, Filip Krovinovic and Matheus Pereira have reacted on Instagram to Diangana’s permanent move to the Baggies.
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