He's no longer building walls, but building a reputation for himself as a Championship goalscorer. This was his eighth league goal of the season but his overall performance was outstanding despite the late miss in front of the Jimmy Mac Stand that would have taken the score to 4-0.
He polled 33.0% of the man of the match vote, and that saw him comfortably ahead of David Edgar who took second place with a 25.0% share. Edgar, like Austin, had an outstanding game apart from one late error.
Third place went to Ross Wallace who added to another excellent performance with the second goal from a free kick, even being brave enough to push Andre Amougou out of the way to take it.
The same three players also took the top three places in the player ratings. Again Austin was first with a rating of 8.23 out of 10. It's the fourth time he's won the ratings and this was his second highest, behind only the 8.34 from the Derby game at Pride Park when he scored both goals in a 2-1 win.
Wallace was second this time. His rating was 7.71, his best rating of the season whilst Edgar took third place with a rating of 7.50 out of 10. Edgar, like Austin, has bettered his score only once and again that was at Derby.
Austin, therefore, wins six points towards the Clarets Mad Player of the Year whilst both Edgar and Wallace pick up three points. With those points added it moves Austin into joint second place alongside Kieran Trippier, and just one point behind leader Marvin Bartley. Wallace has moved up into joint fifth position in the table whilst Edgar is now seventh.
Voting continues for the Leicester game until the end of today. You can vote for the man of the match on the front page of the site or on the VOTING POLLS and you can leave your PLAYER RATINGS on the message board. The Bristol City Man of the Match vote will get underway within an hour of the final whistle tomorrow.
The results from the Blackpool game are below along with the current Clarets Mad Player of the Year Table.
Man of the Match
33.0% - Charlie Austin (259 votes)25.0% - David Edgar (196 votes) 16.8% - Ross Wallace (132 votes) 8.5% - Marvin Bartley (67 votes) 3.4% - Lee Grant & Ben Mee (27 votes) 3.1% - Kieran Trippier (24 votes) 2.8% - Junior Stanislas (22 votes) 1.9% - Andre Amougou (15 votes) 1.8% - Jay Rodriguez (14 votes) 0.8% - Chris McCann (6 votes)
Player Ratings
8.23 - Charlie Austin7.71 - Ross Wallace7.50 - David Edgar7.39 - Lee Grant7.34 - Ben Mee7.27 - Kieran Trippier7.04 - Jay Rodriguez6.95 - Andre Amougou6.93 - Marvin Bartley6.50 - Junior Stanislas6.39 - Chris McCann
Clarets Mad Player of the Year
26: Marvin Bartley24: Charlie Austin & Kieran Trippier23: Lee Grant20: Andre Amougou & Ross Wallace16: Jay Rodriguez14: David Edgar10: Chris McCann & Keith Treacy9: Brian Easton5: Wade Elliott & Junior Stanislas2: Ben Mee1: Michael Duff & Zavon Hines
Source: FOOTYMAD
