At £30m, Aston Villa were always getting a bargain with the capture of Danny Ings, and the front man has already started to pay back some of that fee with two goals in his opening two games.
That included a goal of the season contender against Newcastle United at the weekend.
If he continues in the same vain, he’ll become one of the signings of the season, and at the price paid, two talkSPORT pundits believe that Arsenal and Manchester United have clearly missed out.
With both needing a high-quality striker in situ, not too many come better than Ings, and certainly not for the price.
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“I just look at Danny Ings and think why is like an Arsenal not coming for you?,” Jamie O’Hara said on talkSPORT.
His colleague, Alex Crook, agreed.
“I would flip that around and say have Manchester United missed a trick when it comes to Danny Ings? 30m pounds, someone who has scored goals in the Premier League, scored a wonderful goal for Aston Villa last night,” he added.
“Are you telling me that Danny Ings isn’t an upgrade on Antony Martial? And he wanted to go to Manchester City or Manchester United, that was his preferred destination.
“Yes I know he’s had injury problems, he’s probably coming into the twilight of his career but you don’t get a lot for £30m these days and that would have been an easy deal to be done.
“I just wonder if Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s blind faith in Antony Martial could be his undoing this season.”
Over the course of the current campaign, time will tell whether both Premier League giants were wrong to not even make a bid, with Villa being the grateful recipients of their insouciance.