Danny Ings exclusive
My agony at missing out on Euros and why I am relishing Villa challenge
It was 8pm on Wednesday last week when Danny Ings finally put a suitcase of clothes in his car and left Hampshire with the satnav set for Aston Villa’s Bodymoor Heath training ground, and he has not yet been back to the place that used to be home.
The whirlwind transfer of the England international from Southampton to Villa was so swift that when Ings left home that evening he was still – as far as the official registration was concerned – a Saints player. Villa and Saints had agreed a fee – £25million with £5million in potential extras – and he had agreed in principle to join, finally signing his deal at 11.15pm that night. There was a latenight tour of the training ground before he checked into the Belfry Hotel next door, ready to meet his new team-mates the next day.
He loved every moment of it – just as his previous deal from Liverpool to Southampton in 2018 was concluded with the submission of a provisional deal sheet to beat the transfer deadline and then a last-minute flight south.
“I have had some crazy transfer windows,” he reflects on a Zoom call from Bodymoor Heath. His Premier League debut for Villa is coming today against Watford. It has happened quickly, but the reality is that he has been preparing for this moment since Southampton’s final game of last season on May 23.
Two days after that he was omitted from Gareth Southgate’s squad for Euro 2020, and headed off for a week’s holiday with his girlfriend. Then he went straight into pre-season. There was a week with his friend and personal trainer, Alex Parsons, in Portugal, where so many of the Premier League’s Euro nonparticipants were training or rehabbing that we joke it might as well have been an evening at the Professional Footballers’ Association awards. Then on to Majorca for another two weeks of training before heading back to official pre-season with Southampton on July 5. He is nothing if not prepared, as the Villa club motto has it.
The first serious discussions over a transfer came on the first day of this month, a Sunday. “Talks started between my agent [David Threlfall] and Villa and I don’t know what the clubs were doing – talking to each other,” Ings says. “That’s when I was told about it. The next couple of days was a waiting game really.”
The next day it was agreed that Ings would not train while the clubs discussed the fee. On Tuesday he had a Zoom meeting with Villa manager Dean Smith, sporting director Johan Lange and chief executive Christian Purslow. That evening he had a medical in London while talks progressed on personal terms.
“We had a really good chat and they showed me the direction they want the club to go in. It was really exciting. I looked at it and I thought it was an unbelievable project. I looked at the squad and the players they have brought in. It was something I wanted to be part of.
“As you know, I have been at many different clubs in my career and I like these different challenges and different environments; a certain style of play. It has always been a different test for me: the way the manager wants me to play and all those details. That is something I have always enjoyed. I just thought it was a challenge I didn’t wanted to say no to. I’m delighted it’s happened.”
He had never intended to sign a new deal at Southampton, a decision that meant the club had to sell him this summer before he reached free agency next summer. Originally it was Ings’s intention to join a Champions League club, and with the window open until Sept 2 that was always a possibility.
There was also serious interest from Tottenham Hotspur. But Villa’s intervention was decisive and his arrival, along with that of Leon Bailey and Emi Buendia, is the club’s play to push on for the top seven and reinvest the proceeds of Jack Grealish’s £100million sale.
“This is a huge club, with a reputation and probably even bigger expectation from the fans,” Ings says. “With the owners, the gaffer and the squad here there is no reason we shouldn’t be fighting for Europe. That is definitely realistic. It is going to take a lot of hard work, determination and consistency throughout the season. But it is definitely achievable. That is a big part of why I came here.”
It is why, when he arrived at Southampton, he only signed on loan for the first season, with an additional three-year deal guaranteed. It gave him that flexibility for the last big move of his career. “Before going to Saints the plan was always just to have one contract there,” Ings says. “I know it’s where I grew up, my home town, where my family and my friends are, but that doesn’t change me and who I am and what I like to do in my career.
“It was difficult leaving Southampton because I had some great friends and I was close to my family. It was extremely tough not being able to go in and say goodbye, but that was the agreement between the two clubs. So that part was difficult.
“But people who know me and know what I am about understand I like different environments, different challenges. It [Villa] was a challenge that I really wanted to take on.”
Earlier there had been an offer from Saints to make Ings the best-paid player in their history, although he always believed that he had one more move in him. He briefly tasted Champions League football at Liverpool and while two injuries limited his involvement at Anfield the ambition has always been to return to a level like that. Ultimately his sale this month has funded Saints’ acquisition of
‘This is a huge club. There is no reason why we shouldn’t be fighting for a place in Europe’
his replacement, the Blackburn Rovers striker Adam Armstrong. In the circumstances, the deal has benefited both parties.
“It was amazing at Southampton – I had a really good run and goal record and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I know the fans will be upset that I left, but hopefully they can look back on those numbers [of goals] and see that I gave everything. I loved playing for the club and I loved the fans and every part of it. But these things happen in football. I wanted to keep challenging myself in a different way. That is my foundation and that is why I only signed one contract at Southampton.”
He leaves Saints with a goalscoring record that delivered 46 in 100 games in all competitions, including 25 in 42 games in the 20192020 campaign. If Euro 2020 had been staged on schedule last year there is little doubt that Ings, second only to Jamie Vardy that season for Premier League goals, would have been in Southgate’s squad. He won his second and third caps against Iceland and Wales in the autumn of last year, and scored his first international goal, but found himself just edged out of the Euro squad come June.
“England will always be in my sights as long as I am playing,” he says. “Whenever an opportunity like that comes up I will always do my best to take it and be there if called upon. Of course, I was gutted not to be in the squad for the tournament. We have so many good attacking players and so many options. I completely understood the decision. Football can be like that at times.”
He is adaptable in his position, but ultimately Ings is a goalscorer, best deployed in central positions as an orthodox No9. From training so far under Smith that looks to be the position he will play at his new club.
After this weekend he will head down south for the first time since his drive up on Aug 4 to collect some more clothes and check in with his two Goldendoodle dogs – currently staying with friends. He also has to find a new home in the West Midlands as quickly as possible.
All of that takes second place to the debut today at Vicarage Road and the expectation again of the big signing brought in to score goals. It comes with the territory.