Random Ince call is right Royal mystery
OLE Gunnar Solskjaer was limping towards the end of his troubled Manchester United reign when Paul Ince stuck the boot in.
“You can’t have a manager who’s took Cardiff down, then goes to Molde, and expect him to come into the biggest club in the world and produce a team that’s going to challenge the best teams in Europe,” said the former England captain.
Quite. Reading fans, however, might point out that you can’t employ a manager who lasted 17 games at Blackburn, bombed at Notts County, hasn’t worked for eight years and expect him to keep an ailing club in the Championship.
Astonished
When Ince was unveiled as interim manager by the Royals on Monday, supporters could not have been more astonished had Mike
Bassett sat behind the microphone.
Since the 54-yearold last occupied a dugout, the UK has had four different governments and three different prime ministers.
All but three of England’s 92 professional clubs have changed their manager - most multiple times - and none were tempted to offer Ince employment, despite his regular declarations of availability.
Not since George Foreman relaced his gloves some 13 years after the Rumble in the Jungle has a comeback looked less likely. Yet here he is, thawed out and ready for action.
The question is, why? Admittedly, Reading are in a miserable state. Two years of reckless spending have burdened them with an imbalanced squad, a ruinous wage bill and a six-point deduction for FFP transgressions that currently threatens their Championship status.
Though Veljko Paunovic, Ince’s predecessor, won his final game in charge, he had previously overseen an 11-game winless run that included a 7-0 hiding at home to Fulham.
Reading are not in a position to attract the cream of the crop. But even if we accept that options were limited to those who would accept interim status, it is still a Championship job.
There are plenty of established firefighters out there, many with more relevant experience and most with considerably less baggage.
Since leaving Blackpool in 2014, Ince has become a sort of tragicomic figure within football, perpetually seeking an ‘in’ but damned by a reputation for confrontation and divisiveness; Billy Davies without the persecution complex.
Has Reading’s owner, Dai Yongge, looked beyond the characterisation to a 41 per cent win ratio that stands comparison with Neil Warnock, Steve Bruce and Dean Smith? To do so would be admirable (or negligent depending on who you talk to), but also distinctly odd. Ince may have won 98 of his 238 games at Macclesfield Town, MK Dons, Blackburn, Notts County and Blackpool, but his notable achievements - saving Macc, promotion with MK - came before most of us owned a smartphone.
Even if his rescue act at Moss Rose, overcoming a seven-point deficit to secure League Two survival in 2006-07, is roughly comparable, tactics and attitudes have moved on.
Rumours abound that Kia Joorabchian, the Israeli superagent and a known confidante of Yongge, engineered the move.
Joorabchian’s fingerprints are all over Reading’s recent transfer business, and it is thought he played some part in the arrival of Tom Ince, Paul’s son, on a loan deal from Stoke last month.
Bizarre
Sources, though, deny this is the case and, anyway, what would one of the world’s most successful intermediaries want with a guy who hasn’t worked in eight years?
The whole thing is just bizarre, and it is hard to avoid the notion that somebody at Reading simply cornered Ince
Jnr, asked him if his old man fancied a job and hey presto - an interim manager.
It could be inspired;
Ince won his first game in charge against Birmingham, and Reading looked a far more combative team. If he can light a fire under the dressing room for a couple of months, job done.
But the random nature of the appointment, and the obvious lack of strategy it betrays, will do nothing to convince Royals fans that their club is doing anything but lurching from one crisis to the next.