Paul Ince has criticised the transfer spending by Manchester United and Manchester City on midfielders this summer, singling out United's £50million deal for Chelsea's Andrey Santos as an example of "madness" in the modern game.
Ahead of the 199th Manchester derby on Sunday, City have spent £326.6million on Enzo Fernandez, Elliot Anderson and Ayyoub Bouaddi, more than double the £155million United have paid for Carlos Baleba, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans, taking the combined outlay on midfielders arriving in Manchester this summer to nearly half a billion pounds.
The 5-1 defeat that started it all
Ince made his United debut in a 5-1 win over Millwall in 1989, but a week later he was part of the side beaten 5-1 by City at Maine Road. Sir Alex Ferguson later wrote that he went straight to bed that night and hid under a pillow, saying "a sense of guilt had engulfed me."
Ince, Neil Webb, Gary Pallister and Danny Wallace, all new signings staying at the Ramada Hotel in Manchester city centre, had to cancel plans to go out for dinner with their partners after security advised against it.
"There were fans outside the hotel shouting abuse, saying we were c**p and all this stuff," Ince recalls. "We never went out that night. We stayed in our rooms and didn't move."
"My debut was at home to Millwall a week earlier and we won 5-1. I said to my wife, 'Claire, I like it here. This is easy'. But that was a wake-up call for us: what it meant for United fans and the people of Manchester."
United did not lose another derby to City for 13 years and 17 games, a run that included a 5-0 win at Old Trafford in Ince's final season at the club.
'It's madness the amount of money'
Ince, who played alongside Bryan Robson and Roy Keane in United's midfield, said Ferguson told him he had watched him for two years before deciding to sign him. "These players are one-season wonders and go for £100m," he said.
"No disrespect to Elliot Anderson but he was in a team at Nottingham Forest that nearly went down. Enzo Fernandez cost £125m. What? I don't get it, I really don't. The money's going really crazy."
Ince said United had spent £50m on Santos, "who didn't kick a ball at Chelsea more or less," and £70m on Baleba, who was out for most of last season and cannot play until October, while Tielemans cost £35m.
"When you think about Roy Keane, Stevie Gerrard and Frank Lampard compared to what these players actually do, it's madness the amount of money they're paying. Keane and Gerrard would cost £200m these days," he said, adding that Robson, Keane and Paul Scholes would still be regarded as United's greatest midfielders in 30 years' time.
Hopes for Carrick amid managerial churn
Ince said United had gone through seven or eight managers since Ferguson left in 2013, blaming poor recruitment and poor running of the club. He said he hoped current manager Michael Carrick would not suffer the same fate as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who was given a two-year contract before losing his job.
"It's funny how you can lose your job at Middlesbrough and get the biggest job in the world. It's mad how football works, but we can't keep changing managers. We've got to stick with one, and I think Carrick deserves that chance," he said.
Defibrillator campaign after Hoddle collapse
Ince, a month short of his 59th birthday, spoke at a studio on the outskirts of Manchester alongside Neil Ruddock, Iain Dowie and Julian Dicks as part of a British Heart Foundation and Sky Bet campaign encouraging football fans to overcome their fear of using defibrillators.
Ince witnessed Glenn Hoddle, his former England and Wolves manager, suffer a cardiac arrest in the BT Sport studios on his 61st birthday in 2018, after which sound engineer Simon Daniels worked to save him. Ince has joined Ruddock, Dicks, Dowie and Roy Keane in supporting the campaign, now in its third year of the "Every Minute Matters" initiative, which has helped 500,000 fans learn CPR.
"It brought me back to when Glenn had his cardiac arrest. It was the worst experience of my life," Ince said. "Trying to keep him awake, talking about England and Wolves. Now when I see him on the golf course, I think, 'He couldn't have been here'."
He said 69 per cent of football fans were scared of using a defibrillator, but that the machines simply talk users through the process. He urged fans to spend 15 minutes learning CPR and defibrillator use via the BHF's RevivR programme.
'The characters are going out of the game'
Ince, who joined United from West Ham as a 21-year-old in 1989 before later playing for Inter Milan and Liverpool and winning 53 England caps, said modern players were too guarded compared with his generation.
"Players are more concerned about themselves and what people think. If I were a player today, I'd never be on social media if I couldn't take what people say about me. If you don't like it, get off it," he said, recalling that he and Ferguson, and he and Keane, would openly disagree yet remain close.
Ince recalled having to be "separated" from Ferguson after a 3-1 win at Norwich in 1993, during United's run to their first title in years. He won the Premier League twice at Old Trafford, plus the FA Cup, League Cup, European Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Super Cup.
The Inter Milan move
Ferguson's concerns over Ince's self-styled "Guvnor" image, and his desire to clear a path for a young Nicky Butt, led him to sanction Ince's £7.5m move to Inter Milan in the summer of 1995, against the wishes of the United board, after the Double winners lost the title to Blackburn and the FA Cup to Everton.
Ferguson drove to Mottram Hall to tell Ince in person while he was golfing with Ryan Giggs. "I was one up on the 17th so I was devastated," Ince said, adding that he still plays golf with Giggs on the Icons Series.
Ince was at home in Bramhall with his agent and an Inter delegation led by chairman Massimo Moratti finalising the deal when Ferguson phoned from a holiday in Colorado asking him to call it off. "The horse had bolted, to be fair," Ince said. "We were sat down in the kitchen. Moratti was there with his vice-president and a couple of henchmen, as they do."
He said Ferguson told him Butt was coming through and he might have to fight for his place. "No disrespect, Nicky Butt is a very good player and good friend of mine, but he wasn't a better player than me at that time. When he said that, I thought 'no thanks' and off I went," Ince said.
