Tom Ince

Tom Ince, son of former England midfielder and ex-Liverpool (and Manc United) player Paul Ince, who is 20 and plays for Blackpool after leaving Liverpool in August last year. A winger who has 6 goals in 6 Championship games this season. His only appearance for Liverpool came in 2010 when we lost to Northampton at Anfield in the League Cup.

He scored 6 times in 33 matches for Blackpool in the Championship last season, but seems to really have hit top form this autumn. I remember watching a Blackpool match last season for whatever reason and noticing how good Ince looked.

So did we sell him too early? If he can keep up his early season form it would be a miracle if a Premier League club didn't buy him next summer.

We did not let him go.

his contract was about to expire, and we offered him a new one.

He stated he wanted regular first team football, or if not provided a wage of around 40k/week to compensate for his lack of first team football here.

Of course we couldn't offer him neither, and hence he headed for Blackpool.

His dad is his agent, and was an absolute gobshite during negotiations

Forget about Ince, the real talent that got away was Alexander Kacaniklic. He's been in top form this season for both Fulham and Sweden. Cant believe we gave him away for PFK, absolute travesty, I hope that *bleep* face Woy suffers deeply for this decision

Schweini wrote:We did not let him go.

his contract was about to expire, and we offered him a new one.

He stated he wanted regular first team football, or if not provided a wage of around 40k/week to compensate for his lack of first team football here.

Of course we couldn't offer him neither, and hence he headed for Blackpool.

His dad is his agent, and was an absolute gobshite during negotiations

Surely we could have offered him a good loan deal somewhere else, that would have made sense. Although it's always easier said than done. Anyway, if he goes on to have a brilliant season, then here's hoping our recent ties with Blackpool might help bring him back to Anfield instead of another BPL club.

Messiah "Aggerswagger" wrote:Forget about Ince, the real talent that got away was Alexander Kacaniklic. He's been in top form this season for both Fulham and Sweden. Cant believe we gave him away for PFK, absolute travesty, I hope that *bleep* face Woy suffers deeply for this decision

I haven't been that impressed by Kacaniklic, although my inner jury is still out there, obviously. But a good point that under Rodgers's youth policy things might be different if these two players were still at the club.

Yesterday Kacaniklic scored in Sweden's WC qualifier

Meh....Championship.

Ince has certainly looked like "the one that got away" this season, but when we offered him that contract prior to last season, it was a very different story. He clearly wanted first-team football. At that point, we were neither looking to employ wide forwards, nor was he looking likely to break into the first team. Combine this with his wage demands and there was no way he was staying with us. His wage demands would likely scupper any loan deal we might have been able to line up, or at least leave us paying him to play for another team.

At the moment, I'm not to bothered by this whole situation. At the time the deal was made, it looked as if we were making the only real choice. It's unfortunate for us that he's burst to the fore so soon after leaving the club, but that occasionally happens. I have issues with buying-back players we have previously sold. (I think it sends the wrong messages.) He would need to continue his current form throughout the season for me to really entertain the idea.

As for Kacaniklic, I'm not a huge fan. He played well for Sweeden, but he's let down a bit recently in the PRem League, following his good start. I think he's a decent mid-table Prem-Leaguer. However, I'm not sure he would suit our current approach or be of the quality we need to improve our current situation. Ask yourself, is Kacaniklic better suited to our current system than Suso and Sterling? I would say no, but that's purely my opinion.