With AFC Bournemouth hopefully pushing for promotion from the Championship to the Premier League and Jason Tindall, stepping out from his assistant role to Eddie Howe for the first time in over a decade, obviously, comparisons will be made.
But whilst the class of 2015 achieved their ambition of promotion to the top flight of English football, the squad of 2020 is a very different animal.
The 2015 side had already achieved promotion from the third tier of English football just two years prior, many of the squad were lower league journeymen until Howe returned from Burnley for his second stint as manager on the south coast. The team was built on spirit, work ethic and work rate.
The 2020 side is packed with potential, youth internationals and highly-rated young products from Premier League youth academies. Quality shines through the squad list as individuals.
So who would win?
Who would win?
Class of 2015
Class of 2020
Don't know
Written by fritter
I’m finding the quality of teams just isn’t as good as 2014/15 when we were last in this division. Got me wondering about our team now compared with then.
Our 12th league game was home to Charlton. The team was Boruc, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, Surman, Arter, Pugh, Wilson, Pitman.
Who would win if that team (then) could play the team v Reading (now)?
I reckon the 2014 team would win easily. As an aside, we could see Lerma V Arter on Tuesday.
AFCBade wrote…
Team of 2014/15 had a different mentality and attacking hunger that was breathtaking.
But you are comparing a seasoned team with a group of youngsters. You forget how young this team is Lloyd Kelly at 22, Chris Mepham 22, David Brooks and Arnaut Danjuma 23 etc, they are far better than the 14/15 at the same age.
Their potential is greater than that championship team by a long way. Eddie’s team seemed to have established partnerships so played in pairs/triangles and greater mental hunger – maybe they were L1/L2 players who saw their one chance to get to the big-time. Maybe the current crop feels they should be there as a right.
Saturday was the first revelation that this side may have some bottle after all. Maybe we need a couple of leaders like Matt Ritchie and Tommy Elphick to gee up the team when we start passive.
Tinpot Club wrote…
You’d have to go for that 2014 team but bear in mind about 7 or 8 of that side were at their absolute peak of their careers that season. Many of them had been first-team regulars for a number of years.
Steve Cook is the only one you could say the same about now. So yes the 2014 team would win, but if hypothetically we could name Saturday’s XI with a further 2 or 3 years development in their careers, I think the 2023 version would have too much.
Garbo wrote…
Not easy to compare player for player….the momentum gained from successive promotions built a strong belief in what could be achieved…we are now coming back from the total disappointment of last seasons relegation…with younger players and some who still think that they are better than this league…and probably are….back then the squad had it all to prove. I think potentially we have better players now…..I guess only time will tell? – Join the conversation, click here.
