Danny Ings is reportedly holding out for a move to either of the Manchester clubs this summer after revealing his desire to leave Southampton.
Ralph Hasenhuttl said: “He has one more year left in our club, we need this player, we want him to play for us. But it’s never helpful to go into a season with only one year left and I think he should also know. Messages like ‘he doesn’t want to sign a contract’ doesn’t help anybody, doesn’t help him or us. I don’t know who said these messages to be honest, it’s not coming from our side, definitely not. We have no interest to blame the player or find him not feeling good here, not helping him to perform the best he can for us. It’s his decision but anyway he is our player for another year, we paid a lot of money for him when we brought him here. We invested a lot to bring him, went with him through all of his injuries, gave him time to recover and he helped us massively with his goals, putting a lot of effort in while he’s been here. There’s still one year to go and there is no reason to sell.”
Ings has so far refused to put pen to paper on a new contract on the south coast despite the Saints making him an offer which would make him the highest-paid player at the club. Ings, who has scored 41 goals in 91 Premier League appearances for Southampton since his arrival from Liverpool three years ago, is also being linked with Tottenham and Chelsea. The England international is out of contract next summer and Liverpool have a 20 per cent sell-on clause in the deal they negotiated, meaning Southampton will have to hand over a certain amount of the funds they receive from a potential sale.
