One could argue that despite him not being of that value, spending 32 m on Ings would have made more sense than spending it on Benteke in theory, just for the fact of the template of a striker he is, and how i feel he fits into the type of players and attackers Rodgers has got the best of in his time as a manager, think Borini, Suarez, Dyer, Sturridge, Sterling... Yet for another summer, we went against that when spending money on our biggest signing, that itself doesn't speak well of our transfer policy over the last couple years, because for all the good work we done this summer, the big one, the one signing that is supposed to catapult us to the next level, may have been the wrong choice again.
One would argue it and it'd be a poor argument. Clubs don't just go buying based on theoretical stylistic templates; but proven goal-scoring as the main criteria. There's no evidence Ings is or ever will be worth 32m. The question on Benteke was paying the money the market demanded. One that if you study all corners of the deal, with particular attention to his 1/2 strike-rate, it made sense.
It's also not a zero-sum game. The priority was to get a goal scorer of proven ability like Benteke. It also means supplementing that with players that might develop at our club like Ings. While LFC might not plan on both becoming wild successes; if they do it's not at the spite of each other or the club. They might both end up successes or one of them might.
The irony is that the Villa and Carlisle games showed precisely why we got Benteke: he forces defences to sit higher because if they just sit in their box we have an option. It was handy we scored early against Villa which caused them towards the end of the game to gamble and come forward. You saw more of Sturridge, and Ings, because of that. Had we not, it could have very easily turned into another Carlisle.