LIFE AT THE TOP IS INCE PERFECT

TOM INCE is back in the Premier League – but the Huddersfield winger is a perfect example of why young English players have to beat the odds to make the grade.

At the age of 25, Ince (right) has been given another opportunity by Terriers boss David Wagner to prove he is good enough for the top flight.

But he has been forced to do it the hard way. After leaving Liverpool as a teenager to get regular first-team football with Blackpool, the former England Under-21 international has also had spells at Crystal Palace, Hull, Nottingham Forest and Derby.

And he insists: “The problem for English players is that it is much easier just to buy someone from abroad.

“You get a lot of owners who come in from abroad and say, ‘I want to get this manager and these players’ from whatever country in Europe or Africa.

“They might just have a kid in their youth team aged 18 or 19 who simply needs that opportunity to play. It’s very easy to say, ‘He’s a foreigner, so he needs a year to adjust’.

“The reality is that it is no different for an English player.

“Just because he’s English doesn’t mean he’s going to come in and be a world-beater straight away.

“You need to give them every opportunity to make it. If you do that, you give them more chance to make it to national level and having more players to pick from. Over the years it’s been difficult – but thishis is a new time for me, a new chapter. r.

“It’s a chance for me to show what I can do at the highest level. If I can do well for Huddersfield, dersfield, who knows what can happen?”

Ince is wary, recallingng how Blackpool shocked several veral top clubs in 2010 – onlynly to be relegated.

He said: “We’ve had a good start, but that’s all it is so far.”