Joey Barton has revealed former Southampton and Burnley striker Charlie Austin trained at Bristol Rovers this month but the Gas passed on the chance to sign the 33-year-old, as he’s set to make a return to Swindon Town.
Austin is without a club following a six-month stint in Australia with Brisbane Roar where he contract was terminated this month due to family reasons, and Barton knows the frontman well during their time together at QPR.
Austin trained with the Gas at The Quarters, similar to Scott Sinclair in October before the winger was signed on a free transfer, but on this occasion, given their strength and depth in the final third, Rovers won’t be pursuing anything further. Barton confirmed that Austin will sign for League Two Swindon, his first club as a professional back in 2009.
“We had Charlie Austin in the other day, he came and trained with us,” Barton said. “He’s probably made the right call signing for Swindon but we needed to have a look at him to see what he’s about.
“I played with Chaz, great goalscorer, he’ll do a fantastic job at Swindon. For us, we’ve got a lot of players in that frontline and what I didn’t want to happen was Charlie come back from Australia, sign for Swindon, bag a load of goals and we didn’t get a chance to have a look at him. We’ve had a look at him, not for us, but that’s the area where we’re stacked.”
With top scorer Aaron Collins, Josh Coburn set to remain for the second half of the season on loan from Middlesbrough, the fit-again Ryan Loft and John Marquis plus Harvey Saunders and Scott Sinclair, should he sign a contract extension, Barton has plentiful options in the final third.
Thursday’s 4-3 defeat to Exeter City emphasised to him that he needs to reinforce his defence but he expects much of the movement to be late in the window, as was largely the case 12 months ago.
One potential issue they shouldn’t have to worry about is Coburn returning to the Riverside, with Boro head of football Kieran Scott and manager Michael Carrick admitting the 20-year-old is in the best possible place to aid his long-term development. Coburn scored his seventh League One goal of the campaign, from 13 appearances, against the Grecians and, once again, led the line impressively against Exeter’s intense physicality in defence.
Barton didn’t want to be quite as definite as Carrick and Scott in terms of discussing the striker’s immediate future, because Rovers are ultimately in the hands of Boro’s decision-making which still could be affected by external influences over the course of the month.
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