CHARLIE’S ANGELS Team-mates are chipping in during Austin’s goal drought
SLAVEN BILIC hopes Charlie Austin can get back on the goal trail today but says it is still “happy days” at West Brom because the Baggies are not a one-man team.
Albion are unbeaten in the Championship and can go top with a win at
QPR at lunchtime.
Austin used to play for QPR, scoring 45 league goals in 82 games from 2013-2016. But he is still looking for his first league goal for West Brom since a £4million summer move from top-flight Southampton.
The 30-year-old scored on his debut in a Carabao Cup defeat by Millwall in August but has since failed to find the net. Bilic, though, is not panicking.The manager said: “If you have one player scoring 90 per cent of your goals then you are relying on him. “And when he stops or gets injured or dips in form then you have to find someone else. “The good thing about us is we are not a one-man team. Every Saturday someone else stands up and that is brilliant. It is happy days.
“It is better like this and in the meantime you are expecting it is going to come and the striker to add to that.
“Charlie is a player who likes to be linked in the game. I told him he does his job and plays for the team and it is only a matter of time.
“It would be different if he wasn’t coming into chances. But he scored against Millwall in the cup and has had chances since.
That is the most important thing. I know for the striker the goals are a big part of their jobs but I am expecting them to come.
“There is no kind of negative pressure on that as long as the other guys around him are scoring.”
The Baggies are the Championship team yet to suffer defeat – having won four and drawn four – after coming from behind twice to beat Huddersfield 4-2 last Sunday.
Bilic turned the game by bringing West Ham loanee Grady Diangana, 21, off the bench at the break, and the Croatian said: “Grady is young boy and a top talent and he makes a difference for us.”
Bilic is enjoying coaching in the second tier and says the strength outside the Premier League was underlined by former club West Ham being dumped out of the Carabao Cup 4-0 at League One Oxford.
“That was a big result for Oxford,” he said.