Burnley FC struck gold with AFC Bournemouth transfer that made them a healthy profit: View | OneFootball

Danny Ings became a key man for the Clarets and was sold on to Liverpool for a sizeable fee

Eddie Howe did not enjoy much success as Burnley boss from 2011 to 2012, but one signing he made from former club AFC Bournemouth proved to be a masterstroke for the Clarets long after he had departed.

Striker Danny Ings was signed by Howe for Burnley from the Cherries in August 2011 for a reported fee of £1 million on a four-year contract, amid interest from numerous top-flight clubs, and went on to be a key player for the club over the next four seasons.

After a slow start to life at Turf Moor, Ings fired the Clarets to promotion back to the Premier League in 2014 as second-tier runners-up, and continued to bag consistently in the top-flight, but could not save the club from relegation back to the Championship before a big-money move to Liverpool.

Ings' move to Merseyside netted Burnley a healthy profit, and his brilliant spell at Turf Moor has not been forgotten by their fans to this day.

Danny Ings was a top striker for Burnley

The Clarets had failed to win promotion back to the Premier League in their first season back in the Championship in 2010/11, and so went big in the transfer window in the summer of 2011 as a six-figure fee was splashed on 19-year-old Ings following his impressive exploits in League One at Bournemouth.

He initially suffered a nightmare start to life in East Lancashire, as a knee cartilage tear ruled him out for five months and it took him until February 2012 to make his Clarets debut, so he ended his first season at the club with three goals and an assist in 15 appearances as they finished a lowly 13th in the second-tier.

More striking competition arrived that summer, as Howe was replaced by Sean Dyche as boss, with Ings battling for forward places with Charlie Austin, Martin Paterson and new signing Sam Vokes.

Another long-term knee injury caused the Winchester-born striker to miss four months of the season though, as he started just 15 games in 32 league appearances all campaign and netted three more goals, mostly from the left-wing.

Austin left for QPR at the end of that term, after another mid-table finish, and so Ings became the Clarets' main man up-front, and was trusted by Dyche to help the club back to the top-flight despite his lack of previous consistent gametime, or goals.

That didn't matter though, and it proved to be a brilliant decision by the Burnley boss as Ings bagged 26 goals in 45 games in all competitions to help the club back to the Premier League in second place with 93 points, and won a number of individual awards as a result of his outstanding campaign.

He continued his impressive form in the top-flight, as his November brace at Stoke City secured their first away win of the season, and he scored winners against Hull City, QPR and Aston Villa to end on 11 strikes in 35 league outings, but it wasn't enough to save the Clarets from relegation by five points in 19th.

It seemed like a foregone conclusion that Ings would depart Turf Moor that summer after he had proved himself in the top-flight, and Liverpool paid a record tribunal fee of an initial £6.5 million, with an extra £1.5 million in add-ons in June 2015 to bring his four-year spell at Burnley to an end.

That figure meant that the Clarets banked a healthy profit from his time at the club, and they later gained even more, with an added £3.6 million due to a clause which saw them get 20% of the £18 million the Reds received from selling him to Southampton in 2019.

Danny Ings struggled at Liverpool but found his form again elsewhere

The fee paid for Ings signified great profit for Burnley, but it was a relatively modest fee by Liverpool's standards, which they would have been relieved about given his lack of impact at Anfield.

Injuries ravaged his spell on Merseyside, as he made just 25 appearances for the Reds' first-team across three seasons, with no league games played in 2016/17 and just four goals scored in his time at the club before another big money move to Southampton after a loan spell there in 2018/19.

Ings enjoyed the best season of his career with the Saints in 2019/20, with 22 goals in 35 Premier League games as he won a second call-up to the England squad over five years after his first in September 2020.

He left the south coast for a reported £25 million to Aston Villa in 2021, and was less prolific, but impressed in parts in his 18 months in the second city before he joined the sixth professional club of his career, West Ham, for £15 million in January 2023.

Ings is now 32-years-old, and has won the Europa Conference League in his time in East London, while he is still playing a squad role under Julen Lopetegui.

He was linked with a move back to Burnley in the past summer, and while he may have gone on to big things since his departure over nine years ago, a Turf Moor return at some point in the future would surely be a dream for both him and Clarets' supporters.