Player Focus: Player of the Season Ings Coming of Age

Handing out awards in mid-March with 10 games still to play is a peculiar act, but few could argue that the Championship player of the year, Burnley’s Danny Ings, has had a stunning season. Even if Sean Dyche’s team toss away their 10-point cushion in second place, this will have been Ings’ ‘coming of age’ campaign. 

His rise has been startling. Prior to this campaign, the 22-year-old had scored 21 goals in 91 games, with a previous best haul of eight from 28 appearance in 2010-11 while at Bournemouth. He had scored six goals in 38 appearances for Burnley across the two previous seasons.

Those numbers are hardly impressive. So why has his transformation been so rapid? How did he turn from profligate to prolific in the space of a summer? 

Certainly much can be attributed to his age. At 22, Ings will continue to develop but he appears to have morphed from promising young player to the centre of his team’s gameplan in the space of an off-season. Such transformations happen more often than you think – Gareth Bale, another Southampton product, in 2010-11 for instance (albeit at a different level).

More than one Premier League club registered an interest in Ings in January, before being duly rebuffed, and even if Burnley endure a severe dip in form and fail to seal promotion, Ings will still likely be at the top table come August. The jump in quality cannot be fully appreciated from the stands and there can be no guarantee that Ings will land on his feet - there is, it should go without saying, a big difference between playing at the Emirates to playing at Huish Park - but he appears to possess the qualities needed to be a success in the top tier.

Much of his success has been down to the remarkable partnership he has formed with Sam Vokes along with Dyche’s influence. Vokes has scored 19 goals and provides the perfect foil to Ings. They have different styles but complement each other very well. 

There had been many critics of Dyche’s direct style of football but those dissenting voices have been firmly silenced. After a couple of weeks of the season, the arguments sounded like this: Burnley place too much emphasis on physicality. They are too fond of the long ball. Get it to Ings and Vokes, let them do the rest. Keep it tight at the back and build from there.

Those were all hugely exaggerated. Yes, they do have the joint second highest average for long passes per game but the argument is weakened when you consider Ings struggles in aerial challenges, even if Vokes provides the bigger physical threat. With 38 of Burnley’s 59 league goals coming from the pair, there can be no argument that they are among the best strike partnerships in this division for a decade – regardless of the perceived style of football.

Dyche, who, it has been joked, looks like a Slug and Lettuce doorman but comes across as incredibly articulate, has been christened the Ginger Mourinho by Burnley supporters but he is on record as saying he was influenced more by the pressing of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona than the Chelsea manager.

“Barcelona were the best exponents of pressing their opponents to get the ball back,” he said in an interview earlier this season. “Everyone raved about their passing, but I thought their pressing game was unbelievable.

“When I took over [at Burnley], we looked at how they did it and felt that, as a group, we could do the same. It starts with Sam Vokes and Danny Ings up front, goes through midfield and on to the back four. Everyone has to do his bit to deny the other team space and get the ball back." 

It is a little more intricate than a Jack Charlton-esque 'put 'em under pressure' and his thorough man-management, instilling a new level of confidence in the dressing room, has been as important as any other factor. Players have constantly spoken of their admiration for him: like Mourinho, he keeps tabs on his squad, ensuring they are in a positive frame of mind, treating them like more than just footballers. 

Unbeaten in 12, their next two games are against sides battling relegation, Charlton and Burnley, before what could be one of the games of the season against the leaders, Leicester. Burnley still have ambitions to overhaul the long-time leaders and the gulf in class between second and third appears to be greater than the distance between the top two. It would require a remarkable capitulation to stop them from returning to the Premier League – Dyche, Ings and Vokes all deserve their shot on the biggest domestic stage.

Is Danny Ings good enough to play in the Premier League? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below