It is being reported that Saints have started the bidding war for Charlie Austin but will face stiff competition.

According to the latest transfer rumour Saints have started the ball rolling in the Charlie Austin transfer tug of war by tabling an initial bid of £10 million pounds.

However this is only going to be the first shots in the bidding with Newcastle, Chelsea & West Ham all expected to be stepping into the race with their own bids in the next few days.

Although Austin will obviously be hot property and Ronald Koeman is known to be an admirer it seems strange that Saints are interested with so many striking options already at the club, and if Saints did land Austin I would expect at least one to leave.

But making an offer is a long way from landing the player and Saints could just be making a cheeky offer to test the water, if the price rises over the £15 million mark being touted as the price QPR want, then Saints could consider that they do not need to spend that much money on Austin given the strikers that they already have including new signing Juanmi and the likes of Sam Gallagher in reserve.

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StRipper added 00:03 - Jun 22 Saints have other scoring options but we have no out and out striker to replace Pellè. And the last thing we need is our season to come off the rails again because we can't put it in the net. Particularly now we have European football too and would probably like to realistically challenge for a domestic cup. Austin is the obvious like for like replacement for Pellè. We need him. I don't think Koeman rates Gallagher either and he did fluff his lines 2013/14. Not sure who you think will leave, Nick? Apart from Osvaldo, Mayuka and Ramirez. They would easily cover Austin's wages and then some.

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saintwizzler added 07:06 - Jun 22 Agreed ^ We haven't got a Pelle replacement.
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Tommo added 07:37 - Jun 22 If Jayrod comes back firing we have most certainly got a n out and out striker to replace Pelle
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derbydog added 07:45 - Jun 22 Makes sense to me. European playing clubs like to have two players for each position with up to 70 games possible in a season. So Long/ Rodriguez right, Pelle/Austin middle, Mani/the Malaga guy left. Don't see room for Mayuka and Galagher
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Jesus_02 added 09:49 - Jun 22 Firstly, Sam Gallagher should go on loan and tear the Championship apart. Austin would be a great signing for Saints and would move us forward. But it will leave us with a few too many up top. Yeah it would be great to get a decent fee for Mayuka but that simply won’t happen. Most likely to leave for me are either Pelle or Long as we would get a decent fee for either. I am a big fan of Long but I don’t think that RK is, simply because he doesn’t put the ball in the net enough. Reasons to move Pelle along are that his market value is never going be much higher, but he IS getting older. Reclaiming some of the 9m would be good business.

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Dan_P326 added 09:57 - Jun 22 That's a big if Tommo, especially after he was out for such a substantial period of time but here's hoping. Austin would be a great addition to the squad, Pelle could certainly do with the competition and the abundance of attacking options we now possess gives us the opportunity to change to a plan B or even plan C should plan A not be working.
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IWOZTHERE added 10:32 - Jun 22 Although it looks as though we're O'k for strikers, they all seem to spend most of their time out wide (with the exception of Pelle, and Gallagher who I agree should go out on a 'make or break' loan). I think we need more muscle in the middle and Austin would be a great signing. As a priority though, I'd sooner see the big money spent on Toby A. even though it might come down to one or the other. Get both, and 'Happy Days!'

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corkcitysaint added 19:46 - Jun 22 If this rumour is true, it is a big statement of intent for us, certainly. This would give us a great range of attacking options as Dan_P says. We may now have horses for courses so to speak..
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