A Decade Apart: 2005 v 2015 Written by wadey on Sunday, 11th Jan 2015 22:33 On January 1st 2005 I was sitting (well standing) in what has been known as the North Stand or Sir Bobby Robson lower to you newbies. West Ham were the team coming to Portman Road. Being an East London boy, this was my biggest game of the season due to childhood abuse (banter) from school-mates. Sadly we lost 2-0. They ended getting promoted and we didn't. Now the reason for writing this is to make a comparison to the last time we got within touching distance of the promised land 2004/05. That day was our first league game of 2005. We went into the match top of the league on 52 points, five more than we had going into the Derby game on Saturday, but having played one more. Attendance in 2005 - 30,003 Attendance in 2015 - 20,861 Now there's a few factors here. West Ham is a local match and they filled the away end whilst Derby only brought 800 fans. Saturday was on Sky and was a 12.15pm kick off compared to a 1pm and not on the telly back in 05. All stats shown for 2015 are as of 1st January. Our record so far that year stood at: P26 W15 D7 L4 F50 A31 Pts 52 Compared to 2015's: P25 W13 D8 L3 F41 A22 Pts 47 On both occasions our goal difference was +19. On both occasions we were 10 points clear of seventh place. Our W/D/L is very similar too. There are so many similarities between the years so now let's compare the team that played against West Ham and the team that started at Derby. GK - Kelvin Davis v Bartosz Bialkowski Now Davis was a brilliant keeper and the best we have seen at Portman Road in the last 15 years. Bart has only recently come into our team and looks pretty solid but really hasn't had too much to do since the Blackpool game. Winner - Kelvin Davis (1-0) RB - Fabian Wilnis v Luke Chambers Fabian Wilnis, one word springs to mind. Legend. One of my favourite players. Brilliant defender. Master of a step-over, and scorer of the odd goal. Chambers has blue in his blood. He plays for the badge and I love the fist pump celebration. Winner - Fabian Wilnis (2-0) Not looking great for the current bunch so far. LB - Matt Richards v Tyrone Mings I was never a fan of Richards. Too small, too lightweight and not great at distribution. Mings has turned out to be an unbelievable find from non-league. I really didn't expect him to be better than Cresswell at this stage of the season. Winner - Tyrone Mings pulls one back for 2015 (2-1) CB - Jason DeVos v Tommy Smith Now I like Tommy Smith and he could go on to be a club legend, but he is up against a brilliant defender here. Not the quickest but his awareness of the ball and positioning was second to none. Winner - Jason DeVos (3-1) CB - Richard Naylor v Christophe Berra Now Bam Bam is a legend but he was never a defender. One minute he's a striker, gets played a CB and ends up staying there. Berra is the best defender we've had since DeVos and he takes the point here. Winner - Berra (3-2) RM - Darren Currie v Paul Anderson Slow winger would have been worth millions...if he could have moved faster than my nan on her Zimmer frame. All the skill, vision and distribution attributes you could ask for but he just couldn't run. Ando hasn't really set the world alight. He works hard but there's not been a stand-out performance from him so far so he misses out here. Winner Darren Currie (4-2) LM - Ian Westlake v Jay Tabb Now this is a close one for me. Last year I was a Tabb hater, this year I'm a Tabb lover. I think he is twice the player he was. He does not stop running, battles for every ball, is strong in the tackle and can out jump centre backs despite being 5ft nothing. Westlake was a good player scored a few goals but didn't have the nitty-grittiness of Tabb Winner - Jay Tabb (4-3) CM - Jim Magilton v Teddy Bishop Jim was a character! Was Ipswich through and through. Wasn't afraid to holler and shout at anyone who was in front of him. Teddy is a rare talent. Has all the potential to get to the top of the game. His football brain and skill is way ahead of his age. This is another tough one but Jim takes it due to Bish only having played a handful of games. Winner - Jim Magilton (5-3) CM - Tommy Miller v Luke Hyam 15 goals in one season for a CM is top notch. Luke Hyam has scored only two goals in his ITFC career and that's how I've split these two. Winner - Tommy Miller (6-3) CF - Darren Bent v David McGoldrick How to separate these two. Darren netted 19 league goals in 05 along with Shefki Kuqi. Lightning quick who could outpace ANY defender. David McGoldrick hasn't hit the heights of last season, but his off the ball work, dropping deep, making things happen, vision and awareness is second to none in our team. Has a few tricks up his sleeve and is still a major threat in front of goal. He takes the point. Just! Winner - David McGoldrick (6-4) CF - Shefki Kuqi v Darryl Murphy The brawn of both strike forces. Shefki is my favourite player since being a season ticket holder (since 2002) big and strong. Not that technically gifted but always gave 100%. And who could forget THAT celebration. Daryl Murphy has been a revelation this season. Finally showing the potential he showed a decade ago when he signed for Sunderland. He's gonna take the point here just because of his form in the first half of this season. Sorry Shefki. Winner - Daryl Murphy (6-5) Manager - Joe Royle v Mick McCarthy Both managers have had to work on a very tight budget. Joe made us play-off contenders as soon as he took over even though we were in administration. He then made us automatic promotion contenders. Mick has done a brilliant job. It's harder to do it on a tight budget nowadays with all the money in the game now. Will Mick take us up? Or will we be the nearly men again. Only time will tell but Mick gets the point. Winner - Mick McCarthy (6-6) So there you have it. 6-6. They cant be separated. Let's hope this is the year and we get back to where we should be! I could have rambled on a bit more but you are probably bored already and didn't get this far before clicking 'back to previous screen'! Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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