When Danny Ings came off the bench to face his former club on Friday night with only 6 minutes left, it highlighted not only how far his career has gone downhill since joining Aston Villa, but what is missing at Saints and what might have been had he stayed.

When Danny Ings left St Mary's just over a year ago, most Saints supporters had assumed he would have only left for a club in the Champions league or at least the Europa League, certainly one who would have been challenging for a top 4 place.

So it was a shock when he joined Aston Villa, a bigger club than Saints, that could not be denied, but certainly not one that had done much challenging in the past decade or indeed one that after finishing 11th the previous season looked like moving much higher in the near future.

You could understand that at 29 Ings might want to have had one last shot at glory, you could have understood if he had gone to one of the so called Big Six, but at Aston Villa he wasn't likely to get much more glory than at St Mary's.

You would have also thought that with a World Cup looming as he turned 30 he would have wanted to be pushing his way back into the England squad.

With 3 solid seasons under his belt including the previous one where he had notched 12 goals in 29 Premier league appearances, unless he was going to a big club, then why rock the boat, stay at Saints, be the big fish in a small pond and score the goals that gets you in contention for a World Cup.

What hurt Saints fans was the way he left, allegedly even his own team mates did not know he was off as they prepared for a pre season friendly at St Mary's, but the news broke that it was Aston Villa he was going to and Southampton fans who had considered the local lad their own asked the question Why ?

Ings himself must now be asking the same question and now at Villa Park he is reduced to the role of bit part player running the clock down, with Saints chasing an equaliser in injury time, his fall from grace was completed as with the Saints keeper Gavin Bazunu in the Villa half and an open goal albeit from distance looming, he blazed his shot far wide.

Of course he never said it, he told the media he was going to Villa Park for a project, although few could see what that project would be, but everyone knew that he was leaving for money.

That although he was being offered a deal at St Mary's that would make him the highest paid player in the club's history, Villa were offering him more.

In real terms probably about £30k a week more, but that was enough to make him think about his bank balance more than he would of his England chances in a World Cup a little over a year away.

Sadly for both Danny Ings and Southampton Football Club it was a bad decision for both.

If Ings had stayed at St Mary's last season he would have surely been a regular starter and maintained his goals per game ration that at 34 Premier League goals in 67 games was better than a goal every two games.

At Villa Park he has scored just 8 times in 36 games, that's just a goal every 4.50 games.

Had he stayed at St Mary's then he would surely have also started this season as the main striker and as we have seen we have been lacking one of those not just last season but this as well, a striker that just has that knack and scores for fun.

Saints have sorted out their issues at the back, now their scoring problem needs to be solved, if Danny Ings was at St Mary's he could now be the icing on the cake,how much better would we be if we had Danny Ings scoring 4 goals in our first 8 games.

But that is all wishful thinking now, Saints will soldier on and so will Danny Ings at Aston Villa, he will be moving on to another project now, that will be browsing the holiday brochures to see what he is going to do in the middle of November for a couple of weeks, just over a year ago he would have been thinking that he would be going to Quatar.

This story could have had a happy ending for both Danny Ings and Southampton Football Club, but the truth is Ings made a decision where he decided to chase money rather than goals and as Ralph Hasenhuttl said at the time, players don't want to become club legends anymore !

Photo: Action Images

highfield49 added 09:16 - Sep 20 Could I have be tempted by the opportunity of £30k a week more in my bank balance? Yup, probably. It depends what you call a bad decision I suppose but with ageing legs and fitness issues ever present it was certainly a good financial decision.
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saintmark1976 added 09:23 - Sep 20 Nick, what is it lately with you Aston Villa and “our” players who have left to join them? Last week it was Jan Bednarek this week Danny Ings. Better to concentrate on problems closer to home. After all, there’s plenty to be concerned about at the moment with a first team that’s only won three out of the last twenty seven Premiership matches under a manager who last Friday appeared as clueless as ever.

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JoeEgg added 09:52 - Sep 20 "a first team that’s only won three out of the last twenty seven Premiership matches under a manager who last Friday appeared as clueless as ever." Spot on saintmark - most probably one reason Ings left was because he, like many others, did not understand Ralph or want to play for him. Ings needed better service but Ralph was always selecting teams that lacked enterprise and creativity. A tragedy for both Ings and our Club in my opinion. Our youngsters would have benefitted greatly from playing alongside Danny Ings -another opportunity wasted by our clueless manager.

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A1079 added 10:37 - Sep 20 I really don't give a monkey why players have left us or how they are doing. Why do I not care, because we have enough issues of our own without worrying about the fortunes of former players or about the clubs they have gone to. What should be our focus is our season in and season out issues on the pitch whether it is defence, attack, midfield or whatever, our inability to string 2 consistent performances together, the complete ineptitude of our team against Villa - a poor Villa and little prospect of things really changing. Yes, we suddenly produce a great performance against someone but surrounded by games of mediocrity and sub standard play and quality. Forget about Ings, forget about Villa, forget about Bednarek, forget about Van Dijk or Lallana etc etc - focus on Saints because there is alot to focus on.

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dirk_doone added 10:56 - Sep 20 We shuld be more concerned about Southampton's fall from grace since Ings left. We still haven't found an adequate goal scorer to replace him and until we do, we are going to see a lot more 'Southampton nil' results.
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ElSanto added 11:43 - Sep 20 I don't laugh much when reading articles, so thanks for the laughs, Nick. I really respect the way you always try to stay balanced in your opinions and remain positive, so when your claws come out it makes it all the funnier as I know you are fuming. Keep up the great work.
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felly1 added 13:00 - Sep 20 Losing Ings was a bit of a disaster for Saints to be honest. An experienced natural goalscorer with a sharp turn in pace and excellent technique. We should have offered him 150k a week. Instead the powers to be offered on loan Theo Walcott, a 2 year deal worth 50/60k a week for a player that is clearly finished as a top level player... Madness.
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ItchenNorth added 14:28 - Sep 20 Grass not always greener! JWP are you listening. Go be our next proper club legend.
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YosemiteSaint added 14:53 - Sep 20 I'll say it before and will say it again: Ings's greatest gift to Saints was the wildly inaccurate/inappropriate transfer fee he somehow managed to command before jumping the shark. £30 million for a crocked Ings at the end of his career?! I'd do that deal in a heartbeat—and we did!
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Ifonly added 16:23 - Sep 20 If we still had Ings (or Broja) we'd be a better team but that wasn't the issue on Friday. The midfield wasn't up to the job of creating chances. It doesn't matter who you have up top, if you don't create any chances you won't score any.
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halftimeorange added 16:51 - Sep 20 The starting midfield on Saturday beggared belief. Both Diallo and Elynnoussi were hooked too late and JWP should've gone with them. Creative players were there in number on the bench and should've been on when the game began. The other thing is McGinn singled out KWP for a hard time, presumably as Gerrard had identified KWP as our main attacking threat but, now we have no Romeu to dish it back.

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dirk_doone added 20:21 - Sep 20 I see the comments thread has turned into a discussion of the inadequacies of our midfield. Perhaps we could next have an article on the falls from grace of Tadic and Hojbjerg.
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saintsfanbrock added 07:20 - Sep 21 If I was offered a third more of my salary for what will likely be my last job to do less work you had best believe I would accept it. Why do we expect differently of footballers?
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sledger added 07:26 - Sep 21 great business from saints,could have been us with a declining player on a mega salary
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SanMarco added 09:44 - Sep 22 I always had the feeling he didn't get on with Ralph so if you add that to wads of cash his decision was not a difficult one to understand. If he is in terminal decline/'falling from grace' I'd just as soon he did it elsewhere. As the wise people above say it is how we have (not) replaced him that should concern us.
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