Macca: Ings must play with Antonio or not at all

The ex –West Ham forward Frank McAvennie , who knew something about scoring goals, has gone on record by saying that Danny Ings shouldn’t be playing for West Ham unless he’s in a strike duo with Michail Antonio as he “can’t play on his own”.

Ings joined the club in a £15m deal from Aston Villa in January as a panic buy in an attempt to add more goals during our slide down the table at the beginning of the year.  Despite being one of the highest paid players in the club , he has only found the back of the net twice in his Premier League appearances.         

Michail Antonio has now leapfrogged him in the pecking order with Scamacca  out for the season and possibly out of the club with a knee injury, but McAvennie feels that Ings should only play alongside Antonio or not at all because he simply can’t do it.

“Ings can’t play on his own,” he told westhamsone.com: “I think he’s a great striker but he can’t play on his own, so why play him up front on his own? I don’t get it.

Everyone can see that. He’s never played on his own. They’ve bought a few like this before. I wouldn’t even try him.

He can’t do the holding up work that you need to bring others in. Ings can’t do that. He’ll put the ball in the net. He’s got to play with Antonio or he doesn’t play at all. Don’t play him on his own.”

The only positive out of this, is that this has seemed to have spurred Antonio on, and he has now hit a rich run of form with four goals and one assist in his last six games to help the team reach the Europa Conference League semi-finals and move away from relegation in the Premier League.

As reported in CandH yesterday, the appointment of a Director of Football is precisely what we need to stop these ultimately doomed to failure , overpriced, panic buys.