Five years ago Charlie Austin was playing non-league football for Poole Town while working part-time as a bricklayer. Today he is one of the most coveted English strikers in the Premier League.

And frankly, I am not in the least bit surprised by his thoroughly deserved rise to the top.

That’s because Austin is one of a breed that seems to get more scarce every year, certainly amongst the English. He isn’t blessed with superlative skills or blistering pace. He isn’t the most technically gifted player on the planet or the best at holding up play.

But what Austin does have simply cannot be taught: a natural and instinctive ability to score goals by being in the right place at the right time with the right finish. A modern-day version of Gary Lineker.

At Poole he hit the net 64 times in just 57 appearances, at Swindon he scored 37 in 65 and at Burnley he put away 45 in 90 games.

At QPR he has already scored 31 in 52 matches and is the leading English scorer in the top flight with 11 goals, including a match winning hat-trick against West Brom last weekend.

It was evident from an early stage, back in the Poole days in fact, that Charlie was something special. In fact in his farewell match for the club before moving to Swindon he scored five goals. Not many players do that at any level of the game.

So what’s next for the 25-year-old? No disrespect to QPR or Harry Redknapp, but there is more chance of finding Roy Keane enjoying a candlelit supper with Alex Ferguson than Austin still being at Loftus Road next season.

I agree with Harry when he says Austin simply cannot be sold in January – that would be tantamount to the club throwing in the towel on their relegation fight.

But come the end of the season, whether or not QPR have stayed up, I have absolutely no doubt Charlie will continue his climb up the ladder. By then he will probably have hit over 20 goals for a struggling club, have played for England (unless Roy Hodgson completely loses the plot) and, at 25, yet to reach his prime.

Personally, and this may come as a bit of a surprise, I would love to see him at Liverpool. I just think he would be a better fit at Anfield than at any of the other top clubs. He could very well be Brendan Roger’s missing link.

Wherever he ends up, Austin is already a shining example of what hard work and determination can achieve. His is the ultimate Roy of the Rovers story.

And in an era when footballers are groomed from the age of five by the super clubs, it’s nice to know there is still an alternative route to the top.

One game doesn’t make a season

There is a growing tendency amongst English football fans to read too much into a single result – win a game handsomely and you are destined for the title, lose one badly and relegation is on the cards.

To a certain extent supporters have always been this way, letting their passion and love for their team stop them from being more objective and looking at the bigger picture.

But in recent years, no doubt fuelled by a media that adores making mountains out of molehills, this habit of remembering only the last 90 minutes has intensified.

Just last week some Manchester United fans I was chatting to were talking up their team’s chances of winning the league. Six wins in a row, more cohesive performances and Chelsea in their sights.

One indifferent result against Aston Villa and all of a sudden United are apparently back to square one. Those very same United fans were writing off their chances of even making the top four.

Players, no matter how talented, are only human. Just like you and I can have a bad day at the office, so can they

I suppose this is just another symptom of the overall impatience that has infested football in the past few decades. But that doesn’t make it right.

Any team can have an off day just as, once in a while, a team can have a day where everything clicks into place and the opposition is swept aside. Players, no matter how talented, are only human. Just like you and I can have a bad day at the office, so can they.

To continue using Manchester United as the example, the team are making progress but are nowhere near being the finished article. Although their results over the past month or so have been impressive on paper, many of the wins were not fully deserved.

A result like the 1-1 draw with Villa was always going to happen while ever the team is in transition. It doesn’t mean they are not going to win the title just as the 3-0 victory over Liverpool didn’t mean they were.

Football is just one continuous roller coaster ride packed with ups and downs and highs and lows so you’d better get used to it.

Unless you support Real Madrid of course.

Or Leicester.

Learning curve

Roy Hodgson has promised that all eligible members of his first team squad will be available for selection for the under-21s at next summer’s Euro 2015 tournament.

That means young lads like Ross Barkley, Jack Wilshere, Luke Shaw, Phil Jones and Raheem Sterling can all play in the youth tournament despite being regular members of the senior squad.

The full England team has a Euro 2016 qualifying game that clashes with the tournament in the Czech Republic. But Hodgson has said he is happy to give the under-21s preference.

And he is absolutely right because these stars of the future will learn a lot more from playing a few games under proper tournament conditions than they will from making up the squad for another easy qualifying match.

Who knows they may even learn how to take penalties under pressure and go on to transfer that skill to the senior team.

No wait, hang on, I forgot the under-21s were managed by Gareth Southgate…

Turning point for Brendan

Things are looking up for Liverpool. The results may not yet be going the right way, but I’ve seen enough in their recent performances to suggest that the club might be on the mend.

Against Manchester United a couple of weeks ago they were very unlucky – how they ended up losing that game 3-0, God only knows. Well God and a young lad called David de Gea.

Then again last Sunday they absolutely dominated a very poor Arsenal team, having a staggering 64 per cent of the possession and peppering the away team’s goal with 27 shots (the most Arsenal have received in the Premier League in 11 years).

But still Liverpool didn’t come away with a win. In fact they would have ended up with nothing if it wasn’t for Martin Skrtel’s 96th minute equaliser.

As I said, the consistency of results may not have arrived yet but the performances are slowly creeping back up towards the levels of last season. They may finally be getting over their five-month post-Suarez hangover.

And while it may all be coming back together too late to make any serious claim on a top four finish, I would certainly not bet against them doing something special in the Europa League.

Maybe it was all part of a plan after all.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade