Cherries star Ings: Being dropped gave me the boost I needed

DANNY Ings revealed how being taken out of the firing line by boss Lee Bradbury sharpened him up and helped inspire his game-changing heroics. The 18-year-old saw his 11-game run in the starting line-up come to an end when he was named among the substitutes at Dagenham and Redbridge on Saturday. And manager Bradbury's decision proved to be a masterstroke when the homegrown star came off the bench to play a major role in Cherries' battling 2-1 win in the capital. With his team trailing to Jon Nurse's 48th-minute opener, Bradbury called on Ings as Cherries looked to get back into the contest at Victoria Road. It paid dividends when the first-year professional quickly headed home Cherries' equaliser before playing a part in Anton Robinson's dramatic 88th-minute winner. Ings told the Echo: I think it was fair to say I needed a little bit of a rest because of all the games I'd played and I had only just come into it. But that was a little kick for me to go on and change the game when we were 1-0 down. Making sure I don't get complacent or I don't think my spot is there every week, he (Bradbury) gave me that little bit of a setback to sharpen me up again and it worked. I felt a lot sharper on Saturday than I had been in the past two games. Ings is hoping he can find the net more regularly after scoring his second career goal, having gone four games without hitting the net. He said: I thought I played my part in the team when I was starting, with my work-rate and other side of the game, not the pretty stuff. Now I have got that second goal, hopefully I can kick on. I scored one goal and had two efforts disallowed on Saturday, so hopefully I can build on that and score some more goals for Bournemouth. Ings also revealed he was benefiting from extra work on the training ground with Cherries' management duo Bradbury and Steve Fletcher both vastly experienced strikers. He added: They have treated me right. They keep me after training for extra work and tell me what I have got to do. In the past four games where I hadn't scored, we worked hard on the training ground on the distances between me and the target man. We tried putting it in place on Saturday and it worked.

Source: Bournemouth_Echo