Ince shows some heart in praise of Ferguson Scotland's young pretender receives the plaudits from an old master

Certainly at Wembley it was the young pretender rather than the old campaigner who had the upper hand. However, to give Ince his due as he walked to the England team bus after the game, he took time to talk about the young Scots who had been part of a midfield which had hardly given high profile England players which included himself, Beckham, Rednapp, and Scholes, who was substituted, a kick at the ball.

He seemed surprised that despite his maturity on the park, Ferguson was still only 21, and he feels the youngster will ''get better and better'' in the coming years.

Career-wise, he said he felt

Ferguson had made the right decision in signing a long-term contract at Rangers rather than try his luck on the Continent.

''He is still too young to play in, say, Italy. I was 28 when I went there to Inter-Milan, and I think that is about the right age,'' said Ince. ''I think he'll be an even

better player then and he is a big, big player for Scotland.''

With Craig Brown hinting that the Euro 2000 campaign was the last hurrah for some of his older players, it is clear that he will want to rebuild his side, and Ferguson will be one of the mainstays of such a process.

On Wednesday evening, he had another good game and had a great chance to score with a first-half header and throughout the match got into a number of good positions, something which was not lost on Ince who struggled to pick him up on a number of occasions.

''I can see him playing in every international game from now on,'' said the English midfielder. ''I think he will just keep getting better and better.''

Despite his hopes for Ferguson, Ince believes there is no guarantee that he will get the chance to play on the world stage, where he thinks he will shine.

Never renowned for his dis-cretion, Ince seemed to suggest Ferguson could walk into most international sides, but the fact he was playing for such a small country like Scotland could count against him through no fault of his own.

''It would be a pity if he didn't get to play in the big tournaments with Scotland,'' said Ince. ''You have to look at players like Mark Hughes and Ryan Giggs at

Manchester United, who were great players but never got the chance at international level because they played for a small country like Wales.''

Despite the comments from Ince, it seemed he was more relieved to talk about Ferguson's good points rather than England's failings.

Certainly, the post mortem into what went wrong for England will begin for Kevin Keegan straight away. He returned to his home on Teesside straight after the game, where he will do a lot of soul-searching.

Before he headed north, he admitted that the main problem for his team was on the left side on the park.

Jamie Rednapp is being forced to play there, but he seems to lack the inspiration to play that final pass into the feet of the strikers, Owen and Shearer, while Phil Neville is not effective enough on the left side of defence.

Also it will be interesting to see how long Keegan persists with his first-choice strikers,

England captain Alan Shearer and young Michael Owen.

In his recent autobiography, Andy Cole criticised recent

England managers for picking Shearer regardless of how he played at club level.

The relationship between

Keegan and Shearer is partic-ularly cosy, with both living near each other and being good pals.

Despite that, Keegan will be worried at the way he failed to make any openings against Scotland, and the fact the few which came his way, particularly one in 52 minutes, he made a hash of.

Although part of the reason he struggled was because of the excellent Scottish defending, he looks a player, although he has 55 caps, who is struggling to recapture his game.

For his part, Owen failed to

create much in either game against Scotland, and was guilty of an appalling lack of control in the first game at Hampden, while at Wembley, he committed the scandalous sin at the top level of refusing to use his left foot for a cross, ending up making a ridiculous effort with his right leg instead, which went over Neil Sullivan's bar.

Going through the England team player by player, Keegan will be pleased that David

Seaman looks back to his best.

Unfortunately for us, his save from a Christain Dailly header, although more instinctive than skillful, coupled with the stop in the first leg from Kevin Gallacher meant he was the main reason we didn't qualify for Euro 2000.

At the back, Tony Adams never seems to have a bad game, although Gareth Southgate looked a weak link, particularly against Hutchison, who he failed to pick up on a number of occasions.

His full-backs were shocking, with Phil Neville struggling to find his midfield with the simplest of passes, while at right back, Sol Campbell was given a roasting by Neil McCann.

After the first leg at Hampden, where Campbell was man of the match, Keegan seemed to bask in the reflected glory of playing a recognised centre-half at right back.

At Wembley, Craig Brown got it just right by playing McCann against him, a tactic which meant the Spurs player had few opportunities to break forward and was always on the back foot.

In the middle of the park,

Redknapp will not do as a left-sided midfield player while Ince, at 32, hasn't many years left in him. Beckham and his Manchester United team mate Paul Scholes will nearly always feature in a Keegan midfield, such is the quality of their play. How-ever, Scotland showed if you close them down and knock them off their stride, they will struggle.

It is clear Keegan has flair players at his disposal once they are fully fit, like Steve McManaman at Real Madrid, although he must have been unsettled this week after the sacking of John Toshack, the man who signed him for the Spanish club.

Other players like Robbie Fowler, Rio Ferdinand, and Kevin Phillips all look like they could force their way into the starting line-up in Euro 2000, but for all the talk of how great a force

English football is, many of the players in Keegan's set-up have yet to prove themselves.

For instance, many critics point to the fact that many Scottish players do not play for so-called top sides, but if you look at

Keegan's squad, he has brought in people like Steve Froggatt of Coventry City and Steve Guppy of Leicester City, who would not have caused Brown much worry if they had played.

Keegan should also be criticised for bringing on Emile

Heskey in place of Owen against Scotland. Heskey is a big, strong, target-man type which surely in this day and age is not what teams like England want to aspire to.

Leaving Cole on the bench, whose pace would have been a problem for Scotland, may have been a mission statement from Keegan that he will be going back to what he no doubt would call old traditional football values.

However, that way of thinking is outdated and if England do go down the road of playing a big target man and punting high balls up to him they will get easily beaten by most teams in Euro 2000.

Overall, Keegan has more than a few problems to sort out, and the question is does he have the managerial experience to do it.

After all, here you have a man who was tactically savaged by Brown on Wednesday evening and had no real answer when his team was being over-run.

He admitted many a team would have crumbled under the pressure put on them by Scotland at Wembley and, the fact that they did not, was more a tribute to the players than the coach.

Certainly this winter will be a time for Keegan to take stock and try and restore some sort of

quality to his side, which was

left reeling by Scotland on Wednesday.