We won 5 PL and reached 3 CL finals in his first 7 years. He started most games
How good was Paul Ince
- Thread starter Jeppers7
- Start date
He was ok. He was a good player. He was nowhere near the level of players who were the actual key reasons for those trophies - VDS, Vidic, Rio, Evra, Scholes, Giggs, Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez.
Why Carrick fans make this direct correlation to trophies and Carricks ability, when we had THAT team beggars belief. It would’ve been harder for him not to win trophies. His performances didn’t win us games. He was a cog in a great team. He could have been a number of other players.
As for your direct point….from 06/07 to 11/12 Carrick was on the bench or not in the squad for 64 league games (not including 14 games missed through injury). So of his first six season he spent almost 2 full league seasons on the bench or in the stands that he was available for.
Ince was a miles better player, in a different league to Carrick.
SAF begs to differ. Was Ince a better DM then Carrick was? Sure but that's mainly because Carrick was a DLP with the frame (6ft3) and the positioning needed to cover that role (with some help). In terms of passing range and elegance with the ball, Carrick was a far better player then Ince was.
Secondly Incey was trouble. The stories I heard of him not in the United camp but the Liverpool camp are terrifying.If Ince stayed with United then he would have probably physically clashed with the likes of Keane, Schmeichel and Eric. If he was in the 2008 side then he'll probably try and lead a coup against the gaffer and if he was in this current squad then he'll be the guvnor. Secondly success is down to balance. SAF was a master in building well balanced sides and he hated enforcers like Ince simply because he felt that they provided next to nothing apart from physicality and defensive work. Quite frankly I disagree on that. Ince would have added mileage to Scholes and would have allowed us to play more creative wingers as opposed to relying so much on the likes of Park and Valencia. There again the Carrick team won the 3rd CL while the tough as nails side Ince was part to didn't.
People need to quit this dreadful argument. Ince's era United side were severely hampered in Europe that robbed them of fielding their strongest possible side by the "only 3 foreigners" rule. If our 2000s sides had such hinderances we would probably have no UCL's in that era.
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Ince got on superbly with all the players you mentioned as well as Giggs and Sharpe. Ince was not a disruptive figure in terms of likeability, but his presence was said to be somewhat overbearing in the sense of leaving an impression on others, and certainly the more impressionable or unmoulded - which is a prime concern when talking about youngsters who don't know themselves yet and are still there to be turned by influence. Ince having that overbearing presence, and kids being impressionable was the prime concern. Olders could take Ince for what he was and laugh it off or get along with it and all were of the same mindset when it came down to gameday where Ince's power of influence and personality were always huge factors in our games.
Keane's said many, many times over the years how much he got on with Ince and whilst not gushing stated in no uncertain terms Ince was the right sort because he would always back his words and give 100% come gameday. That side, and those players were all the fiercest of competitors and it's one of the reasons they are so highly regarded alongside the swashbuckling football - their camaraderie might even be said to be the strongest of all out great sides in the Fergie era, so friction amongst the players is not the issue or cause for concern, but the overspill from force of personality and malleability is. Keane would play down his own ability, Cantona would use his presence solely to lead and guide and Schmeichel was intense, but focused - Ince is the one from the four who would let others know he was the dog's bollocks and a force to be reckoned with and if you don't really 'get' people like that, it's easy to perceive them as arrogant, conceited bell-ends. Turns out Ince acted that way as a form of positive reinforcement probably because he was insecure and from a background where you chest thump and overproject to others.
What we don't know is if Ince could have been manipulated by Fergie and harnessed for the benefit of the new generation. It feels like a great shame it ended as abruptly as it did, for one so dedicated to the cause as Ince was.
Personality management wasn't much of a thing for the younger, more authoritarian Fergie, who rarely made exception for any who were short of mercurial, but I bet the older, more measured version would have extracted every ounce of Ince's best years and probably turned him into a different person along the way; not seeing him so negatively and probably trying to understand the person more.
Re. Carrick. Ince was a leader and a person that elevated those around him. Any team he was in, he was at the forefront of (just don't ask him to take crucial penalties) and was there to be shot at as he never hid and was never afraid of the opposition or making mistakes. There's just not much crossover between he and Carrick for them to be compared by, as you've alluded to in terms of roles. In fact, Ince goes alongside Carrick to form a consummate base of midfield, even more, Carrick enables Ince to go, and stay high, for longer without Ince getting told off for overeagerness to attack. Ince would be Carrick's captain and force him as much out of his shell as humanly possible. As individuals suited to their roles, are you going to see more DLP's ahead of Carrick or more CM's ahead of Ince in their respective eras?
Trophies doesn't have relevance, partly for what @Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said and also Ince's prime and the team/club maturation phase being taken from him. Ince-Keane in Europe is just a formidable pairing, and one that may have altered the timeline by inserting United into chief players for the CL's that Ajax, Dortmund and Juve got to contest for.
-----------------------Cantona
--------------Scholes
Giggs-------------------------------Beckham
----------------Ince------Keane
Is a wholly different proposition to what we went out with and I wouldn't bet against them against any of those sides of that era. Even in defeat, it'd be some games for the ages.
Paul Ince left United because he decided that he should play as the advanced CM with Keane acting as the DM. SAF instructed him not to do so, he did what he thought best and it costed us the FA cup against Everton. Ince left Liverpool for peanuts because he would brush Evan's team sheet and put his own names instead. I learnt that from a person who had the late Gerard Houllier on speed dial (and no he's not bluffing, I talked with Houllier myself)
Good luck working with such man.
I remember United playing against Juventus back in 96 and they literally schooled us. Lippi would come out saying that playing against United was easy. You simply had to stop Giggs and Cantona. We were immense in the local pool but we weren't ready for the CL. One of the changes we implemented was SAF replacing the enforcer (Ince/Butt) with Scholes and have Keane (who was less of a DM then Ince but a far better player) as a CM. Ince was the last traditional DM we had throughout SAF's reign
Yeah not sure why people are trying to compare a classic 90s player when it was all about bustling box to box and being physical, with an absolutely worldy controlling midfield with silky passing when football had changed a bit.
Very good. Joining Liverpool has always been why he doesn’t get as much love as others. But that 94 double team was full of leaders first team I remember watching
This was literally my first post here
Ince had problems with west ham, united and Liverpool. He left inter with a sour taste as well as he took all the time in the world to tell moratti that he was going to leave (he gave the impression that he wouldn't) this gatecrashing their summer plans. In my opinion he was a fabulous talent but a cnut to work with
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I think between 1991 - 1994 he was the best midfielder in the league, then yer man Keano appeared on the scene, nuff said.
The underrating of Ince and the overrating of Carrick is a bit odd, and I say that as someone who thought Carrick was immense from around 2011-2014. Carrick actually seemed to struggle at times in his first few seasons at the club, he was completely overshadowed by Scholes in 06/07 who had one of the best seasons i've seen a United midfielder have and Carrick was one of the few United players that didn't make the team of the season that year (United had 8 players in the PFA team of the year that season 
). People were never shocked or surprised if he didn't play or other players were picked over him (Anderson, Hargreaves, Fletcher, Scholes, even Giggs). That's not to say he wasn't a great player but no way did he have the stature of someone like Keane or Ince, not until a lot later in his United career.
). People were never shocked or surprised if he didn't play or other players were picked over him (Anderson, Hargreaves, Fletcher, Scholes, even Giggs). That's not to say he wasn't a great player but no way did he have the stature of someone like Keane or Ince, not until a lot later in his United career.