Hodgson denies Danny Ings interest
Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson has dispelled rumours that his side are looking into signing Liverpool striker Danny Ings in January, according to the Croydon Advertiser.
Ings, who has suffered with a series of long-term injuries since signing for the Reds, is currently back in training and featuring for the club’s Under-23s side.
Ings earned his big move to Anfield after impressing with a then newly promoted Burnley side in the 2014-15 Premier League season.
Despite the Clarets failing to beat the drop that season, Ings impressed enough to remain in the top flight, but a series of injuries have restricted him to just a handful of appearances in the last three years.
Ings has been linked with a number of loan moves for a while now in a bid to give him regular first-team football in the top flight again. At Liverpool, it would be difficult for the player to get much game time, especially with Roberto Firmino, Daniel Sturridge, Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah all in front of him in the pecking order.
Even though Hodgson admires him as a player, he has moved to deny rumours that Palace will be making an offer in January. Speaking to the written media at his pre-match press conference, he said;
I don’t know (about that link). I was told that today and I’m always amazed that stories can be printed as fact without being checked out.
We haven’t talked about Danny Ings coming here on loan with anybody. I don’t quite understand how stories appear without checking it out first.
It’s not coming from me. I like Danny Ings of course, but I like lots of players.
We have absolutely no idea about his situation, I don’t know how well he has recovered from his injury. I don’t know what Liverpool’s situation regarding him is. There would be an awful lot of questions to answer before that happens.
At the moment we are nowhere near that level of discussion with either Danny Ings or anybody else.