West Bromwich Albion striker Charlie Austin has compared manager Slaven Bilic to veteran Premier League boss Sean Dyche in an interview with The Telegraph.
Austin moved to Albion in the summer transfer window and has scored five goals since his arrival and has admitted that he needed to find the ‘spark’ again following a frustrating end to his spell with Southampton.
The 30-year-old praised boss Bilic for his approach to the players and his management of the team. The Croatian is quickly earning cult hero status at the Hawthorns where he has lost just one of his 20 league matches in charge so far.
Austin has admitted his delight to be working under Bilic. “He’s been brilliant, from the moment I spoke to him on deadline day,” says Austin. “He sold his vision to me, what he wanted to achieve, and where I fitted in.”
“He’s very similar to Sean Dyche – chilled to a certain degree but when he needs to get his point across, or if you cross the white line, he’ll soon let you know.”
“Nobody in the dressing room takes it too far or tries to push boundaries, because when that starts happening the cracks start appearing, unfortunately. I’ve been involved at a club where that happened before and it only goes one way.”
“At QPR away, he was fed up with the music in the dressing room and put his own stuff on. I think it was Metallica. Nobody dared tell him to turn it off.”
The former QPR man also claimed that although being a professional footballer is difficult he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You have to make sacrifices, people don’t realise that. I’m not crying it in but things like Christmas, missing birthdays, cramming in holidays with your kids. It’s part and parcel of being a footballer. But would I change it? Absolutely not.”
