10 Key Players To Watch In The Premier League This Season
9. Danny Ings
For anybody who took half an interest in the goings-on of the second tier of English football last season, they will know all about Danny Ings. The most talked about English striker to flex his natural talent in the Championship since Preston North Ends David Nugent, has been linked with a host of clubs in the close season, namely Liverpool, Spurs and Newcastle United.
The comparisons with the 2007 flavour of the month Nugent are plentiful and pertinent. Having both cut their teeth in the lower divisions - Nugent with Bury and Ings with Bournemouth - they grasped their Championship transfers with both hands, bagging a plethora of goals each. Both have represented their country at U21 level with Nugent later robbing Jermain Defoes goal-bound effort shot for the senior team by slamming in an embarrassing tap-in but Ings will hope that is where their similarities stop.
While Nugent flopped dramatically in the Premier League indeed Harry Redknapp was willing to flog him to Derby County within a month of signing him, Ings is being touted as a future England regular. Last season, Sean Dyches team could have licked their wounds as QPR poached their prized asset and top scorer Charlie Austin. Instead, the 21 year old unknown quantity from Winchester, who had six goals in 47 appearances for the club, stepped up to the plate and made the country take notice. With 21 goals from 40 appearances, not even Dyche himself could have foreseen his dramatic rise, as his goals fired Burnley to automatic promotion, with Austin having to rely on a stoppage-time goal from his strike partner Bobby Zamora to salvage promotion through the play-offs.
Ings is a hot prospect, and still an unknown quantity with regards to Premier League defences. There is every chance that he will end up as another David Nugent or a Michael Chopra, but if he approaches each game with the same confidence as he did during the last campaign, it will take a brave man to bet against at least a double-digit salvo.