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I've heard it on good authority that former Royal Charlie Austin is off to Stoke, virtually a done deal for the summer.

I have heard you are a cunt

Ha ha you goon.

We appear to share the same sources then.  :smugfu:

Thats a proper rumour!

Derby scouts at game tonight, maybe it is Pericard they are after!!! :D

if he goes, it'll be a lollercaust

Some bumpkin shouted out this rumour in the town end about a month ago. Hot off the press!

Heard tonight its done and dusted- as is Paynter with Leeds

Colin Calderwood was behind me in the Arkells :)

And Danny Wilson to Liverpool, and Ben Hutchinson has signed a pre-contract with Real Madrid.

Nothing is done and dusted until we know what division we're in next season. On that basis, I call your sauce bollocks

Not scouts, but assistant manager as was Stuart Pearce.

Austin to Stoke 'a done deal' sounds ridiculous. However, if Leeds failed to go up again I would think Billy Paynter to Leeds is a more than a possibility.

Er, I heard the Stoke rumour last night as well.

That rumour initially got to us from the poole board, linked to a stoke board, from someone on there speculating, stoke should sign him, then loan him out, so in other words complete bollocks.

Austins going to Stoke
Paynters going to Leeds
Douglas is going to Blackpool
Celtic are re-signing Scott Cuthbert
Fitton is going to sell the club
Diamandis will return
We'll go down
...and we are all going to die

Word DV.

that's exactly what I heard too so it must be true if two of us heard it ;)

Cue:  Coffee shower!  That is the best post for a while!!!!

Hardly surprising that there were a few managers & scouts at the game. There were few other games for them to go to after all. Stuart Pearce also leves locally I believe.

Danny won't even discuss extending contracts at present so he certainly wouldn't be allowing players to talk to other clubs etc etc. Hence it's all bolloxs

I heard that Wilson has already spent Austin's transfer fee on Messi, its all a done deal.

Yep our season is over. Austin and Paynter are leaving, Douglas is leaving, Wilson is taking over at Man Utd if Sir Alex fails to win the title and Fitton is buying Oxford.

Heard the Austin to Stoke rumour about 6 weeks ago from numerous people in Hungerford but Charlies family are saying it is a load of rubbish, it was started after someone claimed his mum had told them it was a done deal.
If we dont go up I can see Paynter going but unless silly money comes in for Austin(1.5 mill plus) then I can not see him going anywhere.

well the last bit's true 8)

ITS ALL TRUE

Paynter will go, I think he will go regardless but Austin hopefully will stay if we don't go up, An offer of £2.5million would be very tempting though as we could rebuild with that sort of money and get a few decent players even if we only spent half of it.

That's it, we're down...

Heard the Austin rumour same way as John, and have since had it repeated to me by my Uncle's friend, who was reportedly told by someone down the pub who was told by two ex-players!

If that doesn't confirm that this rumour is dogshit, I don't know what does.

Colin Calderwood told me last night that Newcastle are gonna sign Charle Austin in the summer

That's funny Charlie Austin told me we're signing Calderwood in the summer !

I heard from a well known ex Swindon player that we are definitely signing Ferry at the end of the season and will put a huge bid for Ward. Paynter/Wilson talks are just suspended, common knowledge, Paynter will go if we dont go up. Austin is going nowhere unless we are tabled silly money.

Paynter has had one good season - ever......i say if he dont want to stay...cash in.

Out of contract, no cash in.

Errr  yeah, i knew that!

Think Austin going would be a big mistake- needs one full season with us-especially going to Newcastle where he would probably sit in the reserves.

I say let Paynter go-he has had 1 good season in his career, let him find out (as many other Swindon players have) that the grass is not greener on the other side.

Paynter hasnt just had one good season though has? That's utter bollocks.

Sure, this season has been his best but he had a good season last season in Simon Cox shadow.

Even his first season for us he wasn't exactly shit.

Exactly Dave. He formed a great partnership with Coxy and a fantastic one with Austin. In the former, Coxy got more goals, in the latter Paynter's had (slightly) more. But to just look at goals scored is as I keep saying to completely underestimate the value of the partnership as a whole. Some people seem to think it's just a question of "Replace unit A with unit B and proceed as normal" which is just bollocks - it may work on Championship Manager or whatever, but it's crashingly naive to assume replacing a good partnership is that simple in real life

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1265774/Newcastle-catapult-Swindons-Charlie-Austin-Premier-League.html

I like to call it the Emile Heskey rule of England strike partnerships.

Two best strikers don't always equal the best partnership.

We've had two really good ones, the one thing in common is Paynter.

Plus there is a whole host of things wrong with 'letting him go' as Bart said. Was he seriously suggesting we don't even bother offering our top scorer a new contract??

Well there's the fact that Bart said it, for a start :)

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

I've said it before, I want Paynter to stay.

But the fact is for a striker, he has only ever had 1 good goalscoring season.  I dont underestimate the impact he had on Cox last season, he had a good season but needed to score more goals.  But when he 1st got here I thought he was a bit lardy and disinterested at times.

We've lost Cox and Parkin who were both better than Billy. He is replaceable. I'd be more worried about losing Cuthbert or Douglas as I think we'd be hard pushed to sign players who are as good as them in league 1.

Again, I'd like him to stay though.

if he knows whats good for him he wont go anywhere just yet

Chubbs isn't capable of the horses head being a veggy and all that!

I'm guessing that waking up and finding a head of lettuce in the bed wouldn't have quite the same intimidatory effect

Paynter def wants to stay..he is being made to look elsewhere.
We offered him less money than what he was on...hence why he rejected.

Danny doesnt fancy him, Revell was brought in to replace him...but we all know he turned out to be cack. Now Pericard has been brought in, but he cant drop Billy cos of his form and partnership with Charlie. I hope to fuck we offer him a contract, hes been brill as we all know.

It would leave us incredibly short up front, and how are we going to get a 25 goal a season striker in on a free?....it seems absolute madness that Danny doesnt fancy him!

Did you get that post from thisis.

Utter, utter complete bollocks.

What a fucking crock of shoite

maybe they need to go on a date! Stop talking bollocks

We'll see won't we...Paynter will join Leeds or someone...and it will be made to look like he left us.....when in reality Danny didnt really ever fancy him and thought he could ship in better....which admittedly he still can.

Even if Danny didn't fancy him, 25 goals later he must do.

Again, total bollocks.

First off, how do you know who Wilson does or doesn't fancy? Are you Danny Wilson are you part of the back room staff at Swindon?

If he really didn't fancy Paynter he wouldn't play him.

Revell was not bought into replace Paynter at all. Revell was offered out by Southend as they wanted him off the wage bill. We took him because we only had one striker at the time. We soon sent him packing. I was told this by Revells agent.

I also fail to see how Pericard was bought into replace him. At the time we only had two strikers, which isn't enough. Bringing in a 3rd striker is to bolster the squad not to replace.

Fitton said on the radio Paynter had been offered a deal that would have made him the clubs top earner. So he's being offered reduced terms to make him the top earner?

The last player I was told Wilson didn't fancy was JPM.

Lastly, even if Wilson hated Paynter with a deep running passion he must havw had his mind changed. Paynter has been awesome this season.

That told him!

I too was told this by a someone who I thought was a reliable "sauce" and told he was leaving in the transfer window in Jan

Load of old bum that was

I'm so looking forward to when the season ends, and we get all these rubbish rumours, and so and so's just been released from Chelsea, we should sign him etc etc. This year to save pain i'm not going to logon during june and July.

I'm looking forward to the WC....endless hours of vuvuzelas 

the only way austin would end up at stoke, is if they got relegated.
not prem quality or worth over a million quid

Agree Arriba. 

He needs to improve his all round game.  Its not bad currently (which i still find amazing given the level he was at )  but still needs to improve if he wants to play at a higher level. Paynter is stronger, better in the air and has a better 1st touch currently.

Obviously his finishing & composure is fucking awesome frankly. His goals to chances ratio must be the best in the country.

I rate Austin more than Paynter. He scores more goals, is far superior outside the box (in the air and passing), has the natural ability to be in the right place, is more composed and seldom wastes decent chances. Take away the penalties and Paynter's goal tally doesn't look anywhere near as impressive.

I can't be the only one that thinks that either. If I was, why is all the interest in Austin? why do the scouts keep coming back to watch Austin? why is there little to no talk of Paynter going elsewhere?

Austin has a lot to learn and a long way to go, but he's exactly the kind of player that the smaller PL clubs would take a risk on. They could pay £3m for him, worst case is they sell him on a year later for £1m, best case they've got a £10m+ striker.

how do you know they aint looking at paynter?
and 3 mill.!?!? have a word man.he aint worth half that

What's the lowest the board would accept? It's hard to say given that we don't know how much of a loss the club's made this season, but I'd have thought they'd hold out for another year unless a silly offer came in.

no smoke = no fire

I never said he was worth £3m, just pointing out that PL teams will take more of a risk on a striker than they would other players and that Austin at that value could easily be a risk a team would take due to the potential gain.

we have plenty of players who will be looked at.austin is one of em, but not the only one.

Sure, but nothing gets a manager and their scouts spanking their monkey as much as a goal machine like Austin.

no idea.i'd hope they'll tell any club who wants to buy him to fuck off

If we were to sell Austin we'd get a decent fee due to the amount of time left on his contract.

That's what determines players value these days.

I don't care what fee we get offered. We must not sell this lad in the summer. We need to either prepare for another promotion push next season or prepare a squad capable of staying in the Championship. If Austin and Paynter both go it's back to square one and even though the signings of Ferry and Ward would be fantastic we'd still to sign a new strike pair.

Ability tends to come in to it too...

promptly followed by him signing a 2 year deal..

End of season transfer speculation, gotta love it. Can't we concentrate on finishing the season first?!

No shit.

But Austin with a year left is worth less than Austin with 2 years left.

They will both have the same ability as they are the same person.

I like the way you felt a need to explain

You never know with some of the people on this forum!!

As I'm on my blackberry and going back to something jonny said in his pile of bollocks.

Can anyone quickly mock up a L1 top scorers from open play table? League goals only.

No.

Take away the penalties and Paynter has scored 14 in the league, Austin has scored 18 in far less games. Paynter would be the 8th top league scorer and Austin 4th. If Austin had played every league game this season and maintained his goal ratio he'd be the leagues top scorer. As I said, Paynter's record is nowhere near as impressive without the penalties.

My thanks for raising the point though, as its given me the opportunity to show that I was right - again.

On that note, David Nugent has the best goals to minutes ratio for England of all time.

Of course, if he played more games its a certain guarantee he'd keep up that ratio forever.

Paynter has actually scored the most penalties in the league.

To be fair, he still has to put the ball in the net and he does a good job of that. I certainly would discount them and then use it as reason to bash him.

Whether it suits your argument or not - penalties still count.

Strangely enough, I was just about to post something like..."it's not as though the penalty taker just stands back and watches whilst the ball propells itself into the net under its own steam"..or something along those lines 8)

...thats how Darth Vader would take a penalty. If he actually played football, was real, had real jedi powers and wasnt dead.

Seems stupid discounting pens. He's obviously got a bit of a knack with them. Hence him being our penalty taker and scoring a shit load of them.

My comment was in response to a post suggesting Paynter was a better striker, pointing out the obvious fact that Austin has a better goal ratio. Even with the penalties on current goal ratio to minutes played, if Austin had played the same amount as Paynter he'd have scored 30 (5 more than Paynter).

I wasn't trying to slate Paynter as he's been more than impressive this season but Austin had been at least equally impressive. More so in my opinion, there is just something about him that says class.

Austin is a better finisher, no doubt about it. He's the most natural finisher I've ever seen in a Town shirt.

However, I think Paynter is the better player all round - but thats down to 10 years as a pro.

Austin is probably better than Paynter was at 20 and when Austin gets to 25...

Paynter has been fantastic and so has Austin. Paynter causes more havoc outside the box than Austin and vice versa.

I can't believe there are still people out there who don't rate Paynter after the season he's been having (not aimed at Jonny because I don't think that's quite the context of his post). He's looked quality for the most part, look at the Leeds game...Paynter at his best - two goals, no penalties and possibly the pass of the match to set up Austin too. Austin only managed one goal and missed a couple of very good chances. That's football.

I didn't rate Paynter that highly last season nor at the beginning of this season but since Austin came along he has been outstanding, he hasn't been reliant on Austin either the way he was on Cox last season - he's standing on his own. I reckon the penalties show the difference in his game, the first few I thought he was going to miss (and he came very close to fucking them up) but now he looks as safe at taking them as Le Tissier was.

Si, I've watched that little dink over and over again, it was just so fucking good.

I think it might be worth Billy looking at what happened earlier in his career. He started well at Port Vale and then had the big move to Hull before being shipped off to Southend which turned out to be another bad move. In his time at Swindon he has effectivly rebuilt his career again and is now producing the goods and well respected by the fans and management. How many times have we seen players have relative success at Swindon to not replicate that elsewhere in their careers.

With Charlie, I think he needs another season at this level or hopefully in the Championship with us. Look how Coxy benefitted from his second season with us banging in goals. There is bound to be dip at some point and if he makes the big Prem move then when this happens he will be either stuck in the stiffs (which is a terrible standard at all levels, bring back the old Football League Combination I say) or shipped on loan. Next season he can benefit from a full pre-season and build his strength, conditioning, fitness and maybe add a bit more pace that he will need at the next level.

I also think that maybe Colin Calderwood is watching Cuthbert and as a former defender been sent to assess him. Cuthbert is very much in the same mould as the Fridge

Just my opinion like, but I think Billy Paynter is the closest thing we've had to a Sam Parkin replacement (be nice to see him back Saturday!) yet the crowd have never, seemingly fully taken to him.

It's almost on a par with the ball Igoe played through to Parkin at Elland Road in the cup a few years back. Austin did so much better than the Leeds players (ok they didn't do anything) that he thought he was offside.

That was liquid football :)

He was more than unlucky with the chance at the end of the 1st half though, it was only the spin on the ball that stopped it from going in.

Hmmm, I like Billy Paynter, but then I like Charlie Austin, which one is better? There's only one way to find out..........FIIIIIIIIIGHT!

But please wait until the season is finished

Agree and that was the point of my original post. What austin lacks can be learnt with good coaching and experience. 

Its the reason they work well as a pair, neither has any real weaknesses other than a lack of blinding pace. Paynter is better outside the box and is more effective in link-up play. Austin only needs 1 chance whereas paynter can be liable to miss a few at times. To be fair to him his finishng has been much improved this season as well, hence the goals tally.

 Both have a chance to achieve heroic status, before moving on in the summer..here's hoping