Danny Ings can recall with the clarity of a goalscoring obsessive the moment he ran onto Jack Stephens’ ball over the top at St Mary’s against Tottenham Hotspur nine days ago, and the calculation he made as Toby Alderweireld came over to make the challenge.

Sitting on his sofa at home on the outskirts of Southampton, the Premier League’s most in-form goalscorer modestly reflects on how he sensed that the Spurs centre-back anticipated he would strike the ball first time with his right foot. In that moment Ings decided to lift it over Alderweireld, in the style of Paul Gascoigne against Scotland at Euro 1996, and strike with it his left foot – and the rest was Match of the Day gold.

Ings, 27, is on the kind of run that all goalscorers dream of: 13 goals in the Premier League, behind only Jamie Vardy, and 15 in all competitions. He has scored against his former club Liverpool; against Tottenham home and away, as well as Chelsea, Arsenal and Wolverhampton Wanderers among others. He has done so in a team that most picked as relegation candidates pre-Christmas until Ings’ goals changed the picture. He has done so with fewer touches of any leading English striker and his goals to minutes ratio is second only to Vardy. As strikers go, Ings is red-hot.