The summer of 2015 turned out to be the beginning of the end of Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool - but it was the start of something unfulfilled for a player.
Seven years ago, Liverpool brought eight new faces to the club. Some of them worked out very well, especially James Milner, Roberto Firmino and Joe Gomez.
Another, however, could be argued to have mixed results. On this day in 2015, Liverpool agreed a deal to sign Danny Ings from Burnley.
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Then aged 22, the Reds paid Burnley £6.5million for the striker with bags of potential who had already impressed with the Premier League. It was clear from the start that he was desperate for the move to happen and become a Liverpool player.
“As soon as I knew that Liverpool were interested, it was a no-brainer,” Ings told the club's website after signing, in 2015. ”It was the only club on my mind, to be fair. And now that it has happened, it's fantastic for me and my family.
“He's (Rodgers) fantastic at developing young players. For a player like me, I think it will be perfect to work with him; I'm really looking forward to getting that relationship with him and the rest of the coaches and the players as well. It's something I'm really excited to do.”
Ings would get to work with Rodgers for just a few short months, before the Northern Irishman was dismissed and replaced by Jurgen Klopp. Ings would have had high hopes of impressing the new boss, after scoring against Everton at Goodison Park in Rodgers’ final match in charge of Liverpool.
But it was not to be. In Klopp’s first training session at Melwood, Ings suffered a serious injury with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament. That injury would see him miss 50 matches and he would not return until the following May.
The 2016/17 season brought fresh hope for Ings and a new start. A full season under Klopp and the chance to kickstart the career he hoped for a year previously.
Alas, it was once again, not to be. During a Carabao Cup win over Tottenham Hotspur in October 2016, Ings suffered yet another serious knee injury which would keep him out of action for nearly a year and a further 35 games.
Just over two seasons into his Liverpool career Ings had missed 85 matches. Whichever way you look at it, the striker could arguably not have been dealt more bad luck on the injury front.
The 2017/18 season saw Ings stay largely injury free, making 14 appearances with one goal to his name. But at the end of that campaign, the striker’s time as a Liverpool player was over.
In the summer of 2018, Liverpool agreed to loan Ings to Southampton for the campaign, with the deal being made permanent a year later. The Reds banked £20m for the striker, which made a £13.5m profit on a player who featured just 25 times in three years.
Since leaving Liverpool, Ings has enjoyed the career his talent promised and has become a mainstay in the Premier League with the Saints, and now Aston Villa. A feat of 53 goals in 131 appearances is evidence of the ability the player possesses.
We can only speculate as to what may have happened had Ings stayed fit at Liverpool…
