Can someone explain to me why England’s top teams are not rushing to sign a striker who is arguably one of the country’s most natural goal scorers?

With Queens Park Rangers relegated to the Championship it is highly unlikely Charlie Austin will stick around at Loftus Road, especially if he wants to fulfil his England ambitions.

And, considering he has scored 17 league goals despite playing for a woeful team (by comparison Wayne Rooney has managed 12 for Manchester United), you would expect teams to be falling over each other to snap him up.

Apparently, however, that is not the case.

Rather than potential suitors forming a long and orderly queue, so far only Newcastle United and Southampton are said to have expressed interest in acquiring Austin’s services.

And that begs the question why aren’t bigger teams prepared to snap up a lad who has emphatically proved he can do it at the highest level?

Arsenal, for example, are crying out for a player who gets in the right places to score goals. Austin may not have dazzling flair or silky skills, but he is a natural predator with an unteachable instinct for finding the back of the net.

And a healthy dose of no-frills finishing is exactly what pass-it-to-death Arsenal need if they are stop being pretty and start being effective. Austin offers just that.

And what about Liverpool? Austin scored more goals in a single game this season than Mario Balotelli has scored in his entire Anfield career. And with the permanently injured Daniel Sturridge rapidly turning into the new Darren Anderton, it is not as if Liverpool are overwhelmed with options up front.

Yet I have not heard a single mention of the club being linked with Austin, even though he popped out of a near-identical mould to the one that created Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen. Liverpool love natural strikers and they don’t get much more natural that Austin.

Equally, the two Manchester clubs could do a lot worse that sign the former bricklayer who has risen up through the leagues, scoring a staggering 215 goals in just 345 appearances. And aren’t Chelsea looking for a replacement for Didier Drogba?

Austin might not be the ‘big name’ signing the fans crave, but he would get the job done and done well.

If he can score more than a goal every other game in the Premier League for QPR (17 in 30 appearances this season), imagine what he could do in a decent team. How many would he score if he was playing with the likes of Sergio Aguero, Juan Mata, Philippe Coutinho or Alexis Sanchez, for example?

There are other plus points in the signing of Austin: he’s only 25 and yet to reach his peak, he’s English and helps with home grown quotas and he won’t be expensive because, frankly, QPR don’t have a pot to urinate in.

Yet the big boys continue to turn their collective noses up at him.

The only reason I can come up as to why Austin’s impending availability has not sparked a bidding war among the top six teams in England is ‘glamour’.

Although he obviously has the necessary skills to play at the very top, and now the experience to go with it, he lacks the sparkle and marketability the top teams seem to thrive on.

If he can score more than a goal every other game for QPR, imagine what he could do in a decent team

Austin wasn’t hand-picked and groomed by a state-of-the-art academy, he doesn’t have an exotic South American name and he hasn’t been playing for a famous continental team.

He is just a working class footballer who has fought his way to the top. While in my mind, that should give him even more of the ‘X’ factor, it would appear it doesn’t work that way for the top dogs in English football. They prefer their stars manufactured and refined rather than raw and naturally gifted.

However, and this is what makes Austin such an inspiration, the lad himself won’t care. He has spent his entire career climbing the football ladder and, while it would have been nice to skip a rung and end up in the top four, he will no doubt welcome a Southampton or Newcastle move and use it as the next step on his career path.

Ultimately this lad will play for England and play in the Champions League. And he will be a success in both. You have my word on that.

If the big boys don’t recognise that yet, then maybe they aren’t as good at spotting talent as they like to think they are.

Let it B

Quirky football coincidences are always fun, so here’s one: the champions of nearly every major league in England this season have names that begin with the letter ‘b’.

In the sixth tier of English football the champions of the Conference North were Barrow and the champions of the Conference South were Bromley while in the fifth tier Barnet took top spot in the Conference Premier.

In the football league proper, the League Two title was claimed by Burton Albion, the League One crown by Bristol City and the Championship top dogs were Bournemouth.

So that leaves the Premiership as the only exception to this somewhat bizarre and quirky rule.

Of course, supporters of the letter ‘b’ will point out that with Burnley as their only top-flight representatives this season, securing the grand slam of titles was always going to be a long shot.

Then again, considering ‘boring’ was an adjective often used to describe Chelsea this season, they do have a tentative claim on the clean sweep…

Never a dull moment

Supporting Sheffield United has been a lot of things over the years – depressing chief among them – but one thing is has never been is dull.

And last Monday’s play-off semi-final against Swindon Town was true to form.

Going into the match with a 2-1 deficit from the home leg, it was always going to be an uphill battle to make it through to the final.

And with United needing to go out and attack, it promised to be an open game, although not even the most optimistic of neutrals would have predicted what actually unfolded.

The match finished 5-5 and no, not after penalties or even extra time. Just your bog-standard 90 minutes. An absolutely outrageous goal fest that shot into the record books as the highest scoring play-off game ever.

Of course, the 10-goal thriller meant United crashed out of the play-offs yet again, meaning they have now had eight attempts at getting promoted this way but failed each and every time.

As I said, it’s never boring supporting the Blades…

Luis to face his demons

Congratulations to Juventus on making it through to their first Champions League final for 12 years by seeing off Real Madrid last week – over the two legs they just about deserved it.

Now we have the enticing prospect of a final against Barcelona in Berlin to look forward to.

Of course, some neutrals would have preferred an all-Spanish affair, but frankly I find finals featuring two teams from the same country to lack some of the excitement of more cosmopolitan contests.

There will, of course, be some old rivalries on display on June 6, most of them involving Luis Suarez. Not only will the Uruguayan have to face Patrice Evra, the man he racially abused in England, he will also be up against Giorgio Chiellini, the man he bit during last summer’s World Cup.

Added spice like that should make it a tasty and mouth-watering encounter. Maybe Suarez should wear a gag and a muzzle just to be on the safe side…

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade