My history teacher, a very wise man, told me that to understand the present, you must grasp the past.
His job-justifying philosophy was that the facts of the present are determined by past events.
The fact in question here is that Blackburn Rovers are second from bottom of The Premier League, so, if my teacher was right, and I think he was, we must start with a brief examination of Rovers' recent past – a club indeed who pay more credence than most to traditions.
They have been among the league’s lowest spenders ever since Mark Hughes was appointed Graeme Souness’s successor four and a bit years ago. Blackburn have been shopping at Iceland, with the odd dalliance to Morrisons for special occasions, while their well-endowed neighbours are venturing instead to Waitrose.
Rovers weren't embarrassed though. It used to work, through a combination of good fortune and Mark Hughes’s eye for a player.
But time is not only catching up with them, it will soon overtake the team in blue and white.
For the side to continue treading water, the painful truth is that they must sell Jack Walker’s legacy and live like the rest of the league. That is if they can find a buyer for a small-town team in a depressed area with a relatively small supporter base...
The House that Jack built now resembles a two up, two down semi in the wrong part of town. The cruel irony is that Walker’s millions began the phenomenon which will almost inevitably consume the Lancashire side's top-flight career.
Chairman John Williams is now faced with three choices. He must either find a new owner, petition his side's Jersey trustees for money that may not exist or entrust a penniless Ince with the club’s long-term prospects - but only if he is the right man for the job.
Ince has no control whatever over his club's financial resources, but Rovers’ increasingly unpopular manager is far from powerless to prevent his team’s slide down the league.
In the summer he inherited the vast majority of a squad that could/should have ended up higher than last season's seventh-placed finish.
If ever there was an ideal time for Rovers to seek a replacement for miracle-worker Mark Hughes then this was it, but Ince made a number of errors before the season had kicked off.
His acquisitions of Robbie Fowler and Keith Andrews sent out distress signals to supporters. His decision not to recruit a direct replacement for David Bentley, opting instead for the honest endeavour of last season’s right back Brett Emerton was another faux pas.
However none of these mistakes have yet been rendered irreparable and Ince will be given time.
For a man who was once an indomitable midfielder, it is a surprise that his most pressing concerns are in the middle part of the pitch. Another irony. Football’s full of them. Perhaps that’s why Americans don’t get our national sport.
As my astute colleague Ben Blackmore acknowledged on Sunday a central midfield pairing of Andrews and Aaron Mokoena is bereft of Premier League quality. With wide players as workmanlike as Emerton and Pedersen, Rovers cannot field such an unambitious midfield two and expect to create chances, let alone win Premier League games.
What to do? What positive steps are there to be taken? After all, Ince has his injury problems.
First, he must ignore the age of Tugay and field him at every opportunity. The seemingly interminable search for the 38-year-old's long-term successor must wait. The Turk still has a vital role to play in a Rovers midfield on life support.
Second, he must experiment every which way to get the best out of Carlos Villanueva. If that means offering the Chilean a free role behind both Roque Santa Cruz and Benni McCarthy so be it. Rovers really have nothing to lose.
Third, Ince bristled at recent suggestions made by the singularly inoffensive Ray Wilkins that his Rovers side are a physical team. My history teacher would deduce that Ince is still hung up on the perception of him as a player. In which case he must learn that it is better to be physical than pretty and ineffective. Only West Bromwich Albion are more inept as an attacking force than Rovers - and they’re bottom!
Fourth, Ince must choose his words more carefully. His assessment after the match at White Hart Lane on Sunday that if Rovers continue to play as well as they did at Spurs, they will soon climb the league beggared belief. If the team continue to perform as they did on Sunday, then relegation is nothing short of a certainty.
It's an inevitability not lost on the club's increasingly morbid surrounds.
The gloom that has decended over Ewood Park is a rain cloud threatening to burst. Ince’s mandate is to prevent the storm's coming.