As the Premier League has captured the emotion of fans throughout the 23/24 campaign, has there been a standout surprise package who have gone on to impress football experts and overachieve in the top flight this season?
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00:00 Michael, looking back at the season as a whole, we've spoken about the most underwhelming
00:06 team. Has there been a team that has completely gone over their expectations? I know there's
00:11 probably clearly one that finished in the top four.
00:14 Yeah, I think there's one stand I'd say that have overachieved, but to give a couple of
00:19 clubs to mention who deserve a bit of praise, I think Bournemouth had a very good campaign
00:25 finishing 11th. Obviously that's already been acknowledged by Arreola's new contract at
00:30 the Vitality. I think Wolves have had a good season as well. I tipped them to go down at
00:34 the start of the season, so it shows how much I know, but they've done really well. I think
00:39 they're 13th at the moment, but a couple of weeks ago they were in the shake-up for the
00:42 European places and injuries as much as anything have derailed that. So they've had a really
00:47 good season, but listen, the standards are still there. They've had a fantastic campaign.
00:52 There are lots of areas they can still improve on, I think. But from where they've come,
00:57 and you talk about five years ago, not even five years ago, 18 months ago or whenever
01:01 it was, and we took over from Gerrard and they were 16th or 17th, the turnaround has
01:07 just been... You can't believe the turnaround in those levels. To get Champions League football
01:14 to play against some of Europe's best sides, the fans will just be absolutely delighted
01:18 next season. They're a huge club who have underwhelmed and underachieved, I think, for
01:22 so long. From their fans' perspective, they're back in the big time where they deserve to
01:27 be and they'll just be absolutely delighted, I think.
01:29 Well, I think there's been a few. There's the obvious one in Aston Villa and how Unai
01:34 Emery has done an incredible job to get them properly finishing in the top four, getting
01:38 Champions League football the elite European competition for the first time for a very,
01:42 very long time, decades. But for me, a bit of an outside one is AFC Bournemouth under
01:48 Andonete Aiola. There's a lot of talk about the Spaniard losing his job after the first
01:53 few games of the season. They couldn't win a game, they could hardly score a goal, but
01:56 they were patient with his tactics and his form ever since has been so, so impressive.
02:02 As a man manager, as a man himself, actually, in the press conferences, he comes across
02:07 as such a gentleman. His tactics are very versatile. He goes up against the big clubs.
02:12 Who knows what they can do next campaign with some summer signings. Could they even be European
02:16 contenders? I think there's an outside shout.
02:18 Everton, you've really got to take your hat off to Sean Dyche. The battles, relegation
02:24 for the past two seasons and, except from the start of the campaign, just to avoid that
02:29 will be an achievement. And they've done that, they've cleared of Luton by 14 points and
02:34 so that's into the fact that they've had eight points deducted from the tally, which is a
02:40 massive, massive amount when they were battling and it affected them. But without that points
02:46 deduction, Everton will be, I think they will be 11th in the table. And they say they should
02:53 be 11th in the table. You could say that is a big surprise.