Tom Ince has put pen to paper on a two-year deal at League Two Tranmere Rovers, bringing the curtain down on a lengthy spell in the Championship and drawing a quiet full stop on a career that once had Liverpool very much paying attention.

The 34-year-old arrives at Prenton Park on a free transfer after three seasons at Watford, where he scored 11 goals in 93 appearances. It is a solid if unspectacular return for a player who, at his peak, was one of the most electric wide forwards outside the top flight. For Tranmere, landing a proven Championship operator for nothing is exactly the kind of smart business that clubs at that level need to be doing.

Ince himself sounded genuinely motivated when he spoke to the club's website upon signing. "It's always great when you come to a club like this," he said. "The good thing about it for me is that I have that hunger and that desire still. I think that's what has allowed me to have the career that I've been able to have."

Hard to argue with that. Whatever your view on how his career ultimately panned out, the man has played Championship football for the best part of a decade. That takes more than just talent. It takes resilience.

But the really interesting part of the Tom Ince story, at least from a Liverpool perspective, takes us all the way back to 2011 and a decision that still raises an eyebrow or two on Merseyside.

Ince had come through at Anfield, making his solitary appearance for the club as a substitute against Northampton Town in the League Cup in September 2010. Son of former Liverpool captain Paul, he had also spent time on loan at Notts County, where his father was manager at the time, and it was that experience that lit a fire under him. When Liverpool offered him a new contract, he knocked it back. His father was forthright about why, calling the offer "derisory" and criticising the club for refusing to allow his son to rejoin Notts County on loan if he chose not to sign long-term.

Ince Jr left for Blackpool in the summer of 2011 at the end of his contract, with Liverpool pocketing a £250,000 compensation fee and, crucially, negotiating a 35% sell-on clause. At the time, that probably felt like making the best of a bad situation. Within 18 months, it would look like a piece of accidental genius.

Because Ince absolutely flew at Bloomfield Road. He returned eight goals and ten assists in 41 appearances as Blackpool fell at the play-off final in 2012, then went up another gear entirely in 2012/13. By the time the January transfer window opened, he had racked up 13 goals and ten assists from just 23 Championship outings. For a 20-year-old, those numbers were extraordinary.

Liverpool noticed. The Echo reported in December 2012 that the Reds were closing in on a £4 million deal to bring Ince back to Anfield. Blackpool had their own valuation closer to £6 million, but Liverpool were banking on their sell-on clause driving the price down significantly. Meanwhile, managing director Ian Ayre was simultaneously in talks with Chelsea over a move for Daniel Sturridge, and the word from inside the club was that an Ince deal was nearing the finish line.

There was a genuine feeling among those at the club that re-signing Ince would be putting right an error. Letting a local lad with that kind of ability walk out the door on a free had not sat well, and the opportunity to correct it, cheaply and quickly, was right there in front of them.

It never happened. Sturridge was confirmed as a Liverpool player on 2 January 2013, with Philippe Coutinho following him through the door from Inter Milan. That window, which also saw Joe Cole move on to West Ham and Nuri Sahin's loan from Real Madrid terminated early, is rightly remembered as one of Brendan Rodgers' finest pieces of business. But somewhere in that busy month, the Ince deal quietly fell away and was never completed.

Ince, for his part, had already shown he was not short of courage when it came to big decisions. When he left Blackpool in 2014, he turned down a move to Inter Milan. Inter Milan. Whatever you make of that call, you cannot question the man's self-belief.

His subsequent career took him through Crystal Palace, Hull City, Huddersfield Town and an extended Championship stint with various clubs including Derby, Stoke and Reading before those three seasons at Watford. Premier League football came and went without ever truly sticking. The career he spoke about so eloquently, backing himself to leave Anfield and go and prove himself in front of proper crowds, delivered more than most would have predicted but perhaps a little less than the most optimistic projections in those electrifying Blackpool months.

Now he is at Tranmere, hungry and motivated by his own account, and ready to give League Two a go. For Liverpool supporters of a certain vintage, his name will always carry a flicker of what might have been. And somewhere in the Anfield records, there is still a 35% sell-on clause that never did get triggered.

Whether Ince can bring that same spark to the fourth tier remains to be seen, but given everything he has navigated across his career, it would be unwise to write him off just yet.