Charlie Austin is not worth 15m - West Ham chief

20 August 2015 03:06

West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan has revealed the club will not be signing Charlie Austin from QPR this summer.

The Hammers are believed to be searching for a new striker due to the injuries of Andy Carroll and Enner Valencia but David Sullivan admits they cannot afford the asking price of Charlie Austin.

The Hammers are one of several sides that are interested in the English forward, but Sullivan said that the club can't take the risk of signing the player because of his fitness.

David Sullivan told KUMB West Ham podcast:

"Firstly, we haven't got £15m to spend under the Fair Play rules. Secondly, he failed a medical at Hull a couple of years ago. They say he has no ligaments in his knee, who knows? To sign a player for £15m is a big risk."

"He could go on for years, but knowing our luck his knee will go in his first game and that's the end of it," Sullivan added.

"If we had £100m to spend we may say 'we'll spend £15m and gamble one-sixth of our budget'. But it's not one-sixth of our budget, it'd smash our budget to bits."

"And he didn't keep Queens Park Rangers up. If he'd kept them up single-handedly you might say it was different - and a few of those goals were penalties."

"Sixteen goals is still very good, but when we played Queens Park Rangers last year they had to win to stand any chance of staying up and he wasn't very good."

Austin is expected to leave Loftus Road before the summer transfer window closes and it appears that he won't be joining West Ham after Sullivan's words.

Austin who is also a reported transfer target of Chelsea and Tottenham scored 18 league goals for Rangers last season,more than any other English player apart from Harry Kane.

Source: DSG