Derby County’s 2014/15 season was one that was filled with promise, but a collapse in form from February onwards saw the Rams miss out on promotion once again.
Despite the negatives of the campaign, 2015 saw the arrival of the extremely talented young winger, Tom Ince.
The then 23-year-old had struggled for form and minutes at Hull City, who were playing Premier League football, and a loan to the Championship was the perfect way for him to get back on track.
Ince immediately hit the ground running at Pride Park Stadium, scoring five goals in his first three matches, including a fantastic free kick on his debut against Bolton Wanderers.
The former Blackpool ace finished the season with 11 goals in just 18 matches, and was perhaps the only bright spark in a torrid end to the campaign for Derby.
Derby profited massively from the permanent signing of Ince
Following the success of his loan, the Rams worked a deal with Hull to bring Ince back to DE24 on a permanent basis. At the time, the £4.5 million that Derby paid for the winger was a club record, and the number 23 was quickly put to work.
Although he was not as clinical as he was in his first few months on loan, the son of Paul Ince still popped up with important goals, even scoring a hat-trick in a 4-0 win against Bristol City in December 2015, finishing the campaign with 12 goals in 42 appearances.
The Rams reached the play-offs, and in a cruel twist, it was Ince’s former club that dumped them out in the semi-finals, with Darren Wassall’s side unable to overcome a 3-0 deficit from the first leg despite a fight-back in Humberside.
The Liverpool academy graduate was given the number 10 shirt for the 2016/17 season, and with the return of the manager who first brought him to Pride Park, Steve McClaren, Ince finally started firing on a more consistent basis once again from October onwards.
He broke his duck in the East Midlands derby in December 2016, finishing expertly from an unbelievable pass from Chris Baird in a 3-0 win for the Rams over their bitter rivals Nottingham Forest.
However, in what proved to be his final year in black-and-white, Derby struggled to maintain their form from the previous three seasons, missing out on the play-offs. Their number 10’s final game came in a 1-1 draw against Rotherham United – in which he scored.
| Tom Ince Derby County Championship Stats by Season (TransferMarkt) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Apps | Goals | Assists |
| 2014/15 | 18 | 11 | 2 |
| 2015/16 | 42 | 12 | 7 |
| 2016/17 | 45 | 14 | 8 |
Ince has struggled at Huddersfield Town and Nottingham Forest in the past
Although Ince was excellent for Derby, his move to Huddersfield Town in the summer of 2017 never truly paid off.
The Terriers signed the then 25-year-old for close to £10 million, but he struggled to get going in Yorkshire, and was ridiculed for his lack of goals.
Ince scored just twice in the Premier League for his new club despite playing 33 times. After paying such a large amount of money, many expected him to pick up from where he left off at the Rams, but it proved to be too big a move.
His spell at the John Smith’s Stadium perhaps reminded supporters from the red-and-white part of the East Midlands of his time at Forest.
In the same season that he had lit up the Championship at Pride Park, Ince had gone out on loan to the Reds, making only six appearances for the club.
He was often a passenger in games, and could not maintain his place in the side, something that confused Derby fans following his loan with them less than two months later.
The Rams got the very best out of Ince in his two-and-a-half years at the club, and since leaving seven years ago, he has never reached the standards that he had once set for himself.
