Danny Ings was able to play 15 minutes against Derby County in Liverpool’s 3-0 win and Jurgen Klopp said the striker is ‘in a good way.’
You know the story by now: in Jurgen Klopp’s first training session after taking charge of Liverpool, Danny Ings tore his ACL and was ruled out for the season.
Except Ings was stubborn, and said hell no is this ending my season. So he worked assiduously to recover ahead of schedule and was able to come off the bench in Liverpool’s final Premier League game last season. A remarkable story.
The best part about that was, at least using conventional wisdom, that it’d mean Ings would go into this season ready to go from day one.
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But that hasn’t been the case. The Englishman has yet to get a start and is failing to make the bench in league games. But in Liverpool’s 3-0 win against Derby County, Ings got 30 minutes off the bench.
Klopp had this to say, via Liverpoolfc.com
“Of course [it was good to see him]. It was a difficult time [for him], I know this but, like all the others, he’s on a really good way and everybody can see this, I’m pretty sure. In bigger or smaller spaces, I don’t know, we will see what will happen but he’s still an important player for us and all good.”
This summer, Klopp had offers from other clubs for Ings. The manager values the striker at £20million, which is admittedly a bit steep. But that shows how highly he considers Ings, though his actions this season hasn’t showed that much.
With the aforementioned inability to even be able to make the bench, be it through lingering injury rust or the fact that there’ve been times that both Daniel Sturridge and Divock Origi have been on the bench, Klopp may have been wise to let Ings leave, either on loan or permanent, for regular football.
Maybe Ings still is in Klopp’s plans for this season, though at the moment it’s not looking great, but Klopp is always quick to dump praise on Ings.
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