Rafa Benitez Looking to Complete £20m Danny Ings Transfer From Liverpool in the Next 5 Days
Newcastle boss Rafa Benitez is hoping to complete the £20m signing of Danny Ings from Liverpool after the former Burnley forward expressed his desire to leave Anfield in search of consistent game time.
According to The Northern Echo, Benitez hopes to add Ings to the signing of Yoshinori Muto, the Japanese international who joined the club earlier this month.
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Reds boss Jurgen Klopp revealed his disappointment at the prospect of Ings departing Anfield, but gave him his best wishes to leave the club in search of game time.
Ings has had an injury nightmare since signing for Liverpool from Burnley in 2015, damaging cruciate ligaments in both knees, which has restricted him to just 25 appearances for the Merseyside club.
During those appearances, Ings has mustered just four goals, whilst he wasn't even named on the bench for Liverpool's Champions League final with Dominic Solanke preferred.
The 26-year-old has not featured much in pre season, having recovered from blisters after an early game and missing the U.S. tour to stay home and complete a move elsewhere.
Alongside Ings, who has two years left on his contract at Anfield, Benitez is hoping to die up a deal for West Brom's Venezuelan forward Salomon Rondon, with Dwight Gayle set to head to the Hawthorns in return.
The former Real Madrid and Napoli manager has made no secret of his disappointment at Newcastle's backing of him in the transfer window, having this to say on the state of his squad and what can be done about it.
"“My obligation is to try to improve the squad as much as I can until the last day. I have a lot of confidence in this group of players but they know we have to do something if we want to improve the competition between players. I am confident we can do it.
“If you are asking me if it is ideal, I would say no, because the way that I like to work is doing things early. But we can’t do that at the moment. It’s just trying to improve as much as we can.”
“We’ll see where we are and we will fight until the last minute trying to improve the squad first then after that the team.
"Normally when we have time and support - we deliver. We have won trophies everywhere and we will try to do something similar here. I am not happy we are looking to just survive every year.
