Former Town team-mates Darren Ambrose and Darren Bent remain the best of friends but the former looked ahead to the latter’s return to Portman Road at the weekend with loan club Derby and admitted: “He’ll be the enemy!”
Out-of-favour Aston Villa striker Bent is hoping to make his debut for the third-placed Rams, who trail Town by just two points, while Ambrose is hoping to make his first league start of the season for Mick McCarthy’s in-form side after his goal in last weekend’s FA Cup third round draw at Southampton.
Ambrose said: "Benty and I have spoken a little bit. He’s looking forward to coming back for his first game at Portman Road since he left but he’s a Derby player now so he’s the enemy come the game on Saturday and hopefully we can get one over on him.
"I speak to him regularly on the phone. We’ve each got our families now so we’re not as close as we once were. We talk every now and again and discuss what’s going on in the future but come Saturday, when the game kicks off, he’s the enemy and we want to get all three points.”
The pair go back to their time together in the Town academy and a lot has happened since then, Bent going all the way to senior England honours in a career that has seen clubs spend fees totalling around £50 million to recruit him.
Ambrose added: "He was always going to do well. From a young age he was scoring threes and fours every week so everyone knew about his talent in front of goal. He’s been fantastic, scoring twice on his debut in the Premier League and getting an England call-up straight away.
"From then he has kicked on with several multi-million pound moves. Similar to me, I think, he wanted to rediscover the love of football and that’s why he has moved on loan to Brighton and now on to Derby. I hope it works out well for him, with the exception of Saturday of course.
"I’m surprised that he wasn’t getting games at Villa. They haven’t scored that many and the one thing he can provide is goals. But managers have their plans and he wasn’t part of them. That happens in football, as I found at Birmingham last season.
"Darren will always have goals in him and he showed that when he went on loan to Brighton — two in his five games for them. Now he’s looking to do the same for Derby and for them to have wanted him will mean a lot to him.
"Would he come back here? I haven’t discussed that with him but you never know. He loved the place as I did and one day it might happen. But at the moment he’s concentrating on his Derby career and wants to help them get into the Premier League.
"I would love to play with Benty again because he’s a fantastic player. We’ve got that understanding with each other — I’m sure that won’t have changed — but in football you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day, never mind further into the future.”