Adam Armstrong closing in on Premier League move as signs off with a hat-trick
What a striker Adam Armstrong has turned into.
Phenomenal scoring rate through the younger age groups with England.
As an 18 year old, Adam Armstrong went to Coventry on a season loan, making 38 League One appearances and scoring 20 goals.
A few loans later and then eventual permanent move to Blackburn, last season Adam Armstrong made 40 Championship starts and scored 16 goals.
However, this season, the born and bred Newcastle United fan has gone onto another level.
Today (Saturday 8 May 2021) Adam Armstrong has signed off for the season with a hat-trick as Blackburn hammered Birmingham 5-2. The previous match he scored against Rotherham and the one before that, another hat-trick, that one against Huddersfield in another 5-2 win.
Not a bad way to put yourself in the shop window with seven goals in your final three Championship matches of the season…or indeed of your career, potentially.
An incredible 28 Championship goals this season and five assists, meaning the Geordie striker has been directly involved in more than half of Blackburn’s league goals this season.
Ironically, the only striker with better second tier stats this season is Ivan Toney, another former NUFC striker.
Toney has actually broken the Championship record, Glenn Murray got 30 goals with Palace in 2012/13, now Ivan Toney has reached 31 goals with the winner at Bristol City today.
Not only that, Ivan Toney has also got 10 assists, directly involved in 41 Championship goals in total.
However, I would argue that Adam Armstrong has actually been even more impressive, as whilst Toney and Brentford finished third in the table, Armstrong and Blackburn are 15th, actually closer to relegation than the play-offs.
Whatever happens, I think both former NUFC strikers will be playing in the Premier League next season, having been regularly linked with top tier clubs this season.
Ivan Toney could get there through the play-offs, although even if Brentford go up, another PL club may come in and buy him, if offering enough cash…
Speaking of which, back in November 2020 the Blackburn CEO was talking about the potential sale of Adam Armstrong (see below) and said that a major factor / complication is the hefty sell-on fee that NUFC will get, believed to be 30% or even higher.
However, regardless of that, it is very difficult to see how Blackburn could turn down a serious offer this summer, both for themselves and in terms of allowing Adam Armstrong to fulfil his potential.
Ivan Toney and Adam Armstrong have already between them scored 216 goals for clubs below the top tier, now the Premier League beckons for both of them.
Good luck to the pair of them and interesting to see just how well they do when taking this ultimate step up to the Premier League.
Here are a few key facts about Adam Armstrong and his career so far:
Age 24 (born 10 February 1997)
Has scored 44 goals in 80 Championship starts in 2019/20 and 2020/21.
Has already scored 85 goals in league football, 93 goals in all first team matches.
Ivan Toney
Age 24 (born 16 March 1996)
Scored 48 goals in 78 League One starts since February 2018, plus now 31 in 44 Championship starts.
Has scored 108 goals in league football so far, 123 in all first team matches.
Blackburn Rovers Chief Executive Steve Waggott speaking to Lancs Live back in November 2020 about potentially selling Adam Armstrong in the short-term or later…:
“I think first we would need to get an official offer from the club and if say for example Leeds United phoned us up in late December, early January saying we have £25m-£30m for Adam Armstrong, then I would say to the owners here’s an offer we need to consider.
“But the key is, who is coming in for Adam Armstrong if you sell him?
“How are you going to use the £30m?
“Yes you could use some towards operational losses but how are you going to build out from losing a player of that magnitude?
“At the moment, if you took him out you’d probably say our promotion prospects would be vastly diminished.
“With Adam Armstrong, this is the third occasion we’ve bought him on the third time of asking, really.
“We brought him in to Coventry from Newcastle and he scored 20 in 40 games there, he was absolutely unbelievable.
“We obviously brought him in again and then we went back to Newcastle to say can we buy him? And we got him.
“We got a good price, albeit with a big sell-on, but he does what it says on the tin.
“When he’s at it, he’s a prolific goalscorer and I would think if any offers came in ‘[for a Blackburn player in January], it will be for Armstrong.
“Goalscorers keep you in jobs, don’t they? They keep managers in jobs, they keep the fans happy and Blackburn had another decent Geordie striker when they won the Premier League way back, didn’t they?
“If he can get anywhere near him he’d have had a decent career.”
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