Danny Ings' LFC Tour diary: A long walk home, 'The Taser' and facing Chelsea

It’s been a few days since my previous update, and last time I wrote about not wanting to be embarrassed when we went out for a team meal on my birthday… but unfortunately that was never going to be the case.

We went to a Mexican restaurant, which was very good – the food was fantastic. More importantly, it was the kind of thing that helps bring all the new players into the group with us lads and helps them settle.

However, at the end of the meal, I was given a little cake with a candle in it and everybody started tapping their glasses with their forks to try and get me to do a speech.

At first, I was too shy and didn’t get up but Millie and Ads were absolutely hammering me to do so. Adam particularly, who was saying ‘I thought you had more about you? You should have got up and addressed everyone.’

I was peer-pressured into it, so I went to stand up on a chair and as soon as I started speaking everybody started cheering and clapping. I tried again, and they did the same thing again so in the end, there was no point me getting up on the chair because they were all just taking the mick out of me.

Afterwards, me, Millie, Ads and Hendo ended up going to the Cheesecake Factory to have a look at it and see what it’s all about. When we were in there, Millie told us it was a mile from the hotel so we thought it’d be nice to have a relaxing walk back before going to bed.

After walking for about half an hour, and the hotel not anywhere within our sights, we asked Millie how much further it was. He looked at his phone and said 0.9 miles... It was an effort walking home, but it was a great night and good to spend it with my teammates, both old and new.

In more serious and important matters, training has continued to be very good, enjoyable and hard.

It’s been tough with the hot weather, really tough. We were doing running a couple of days ago and although we’d been doing the same runs at Melwood, but with the heat and everything else it really does take it out of you.

But it’s good, we’re getting fitter every day as a team and becoming more tactically aware of what the staff want from us. It’s been a fantastic camp so far and we’re really looking forward to the game tonight.

I said in my first blog that when I get on the plane to go back home to Liverpool, I wanted to be in the best shape possible and I feel on course to reach that, 100 per cent.

One thing I want to mention is the food has been absolutely incredible on the trip – Mona [Nemmer] and Bernie [Bennett] have been fantastic. There’s so much selection and that’s important because it’s the fuel for us guys to bring the best out of our bodies. In this heat, you’re sweating a lot more, losing a lot more water from your body and losing more body fat, so it’s important that we refuel with the right foods and those two have been incredible for us boys, really spoiling us.

Today we have the game against Chelsea at the iconic Rose Bowl stadium. Somebody told me when we got here the World Cup final was held here in 1994. I was only two back then so I wasn’t too aware of it at the time, but I am really looking forward to it. 

I fell in love with LA when I came here in the summer on my holiday, so it’s great to be back here. Hopefully if I get time on the pitch, or even if not, I’ll enjoy the occasion and the experience with the lads and the new boys. With the fans over here, it’ll be great. 

The game itself is going to be an interesting one, Chelsea are obviously a very good team so you can see it being very competitive. It’s important we go into the match knowing what we have to do, but trying to get the win too – we always want to win our games.

Tonight will be a different kind of challenge with all due respect to the teams we’ve faced so far because Chelsea are a lot stronger than the other sides we’ve played, but nothing changes for us. It’s a pre-season fixture so we can put all of our training and preparation into it and get the outcome we want from it in terms of fitness, mentality and tactics, and hopefully get the win as well.

Off the pitch, we’ve been spending time together in the players’ room and bonding as a squad, which is always crucial.

As I mentioned last time, Millie remains an absolute joke at darts, he’s draining me. He’s my doubles partner, so I’ve been playing alongside him, but when it’s come to facing him, I’ve never seen anything like it.

I can’t beat him at the moment – but I am adamant that before we finish this blog, I will beat him at darts. I don’t really want him to know that because he’ll lift his game even more because he’s that sort of guy, but I’m determined to sign off with a win against him.

At the other end of the spectrum, Andy O’Boyle, one of the fitness coaches, has been nicknamed ‘The Taser’ by me because every time he throws a dart, it’s like somebody has stuck a taser into his back. Honestly, I’ve never seen someone release a dart so quickly in my life. It’s something you have to see to realise how strange his technique actually is – it’s hilarious.

And there’s another member of staff, who I’ve mentioned before and while I can’t give you his name, once he reads this he’ll know exactly who I am talking about.

He hammers me every day about how good he is at darts, how good he is at table tennis and how good he is at other games. Finally, he stepped up on Tuesday and played against Millie in a 501 at darts – and I have never seen anyone miss the board so much in my life. He is humiliating himself by talking it up so much. He knows who he is and I am sure people are going to start realising who this is the more I keep talking about him.

Today though is all about what happens on the pitch tonight and putting what we’ve been doing in training into practice.

What we’re doing now, both with the games and in our sessions, is all to get us ready for the start of the season next month and I am confident we’ll be fully prepared and then some come the game against Arsenal on August 14.

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