Guest presenter Ryan Adsett has been tasked with poring through FourFourTwo's legendary Season Preview supplement to pull out some of the best 2024/25 season predictions made by the fans and journalists who took part in this year's edition.
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00:00Hello and welcome back to 442. My name is Ryan. It's a pleasure to be back on the channel again
00:07and I've been quizzed by 442 to be going back through their season preview. Now this was
00:12written before the season started. Obviously it's a season preview. The season not just across the
00:17Premier League is a very very difficult one to predict. There are a lot of clubs here that are
00:21competitive in different rights. There are obviously some clubs that are not so competitive
00:25as we all thought they would be. But it's time to look through here because this was written by
00:32different fans and different journalists, different creators, different reporters of each club. Very
00:36reputable ones as well. There are a few that have got it right or at least close to it so it's our
00:41job now today to be going through and getting a little bit of a reaction out of them. So let's
00:45see what we can get. Now I want to start in the West Midlands here with Aston Villa because James
00:49Rushton said that they would finish around third to fifth which is a little bit of a sceptical run
00:54right. You need to be given a definitive but what needs to be said about Aston Villa is their
00:59incredible balance not just in the Premier League but balancing the FA Cup and Champions League in
01:04the way they have done is very admirable from a you know rival neutral fans point of view shall we say.
01:11They're on the back of what seven wins in a row before their Champions League visit to Paris which
01:15we're not going to talk about for obvious reasons. They're in very very good form. They're up to sixth in
01:19the Premier League which is now Europa League spots and it's an extremely open scenario in that
01:24Champions League race as we spoke about a couple of episodes ago. Aston Villa have become this club
01:28that aren't just dark horses anymore. In fact they've got a squad that's competitive and better
01:32than the majority of these around them to be honest. Signing the likes of Marcus Rashford and the Rashford
01:37revival is you know more than well right now. Marco Asensio has really hit the ground running.
01:42Marlon's been a really fantastic signing too and this squad now that Aston Villa possess are
01:47worrying to be honest. When you look back on this prediction from James here because obviously third to
01:52fifth is a little bit subjective but Aston Villa obviously has said sixth place but Villa are only
01:57a point off fifth place. Actually only two points off fourth place which is completely exactly where
02:03they want to be in the opinion of James. And he said before the season started about Unai Emery that
02:08he's that the fans opinion on the gaffer is that Unai may as well be the second coming and as 442 wrote
02:15correctly it's only a matter of time before Villa's illustrious leader is immortalized in marble from
02:19outside the whole end. Very true. And as much as a statue would be very appropriate for Unai Emery
02:24as they said here he's not one to stand still he's not one to stop. In fact Villa since he's come in
02:29have completely progressed in a way they could never have dreamed of. Only a few seasons ago they only
02:35stayed up by the skin of their teeth and a bit of a dodgy VAR call with a ball going over the line
02:39which we're not going to talk about. Unai Emery's become this glue this cog that is completely in sync
02:44with what the fans think. And as he said here fans think the owners are the best things to happen to
02:48this football club. And he's completely right. I think the difference is when you've got everything
02:53in line and in a club it's not just the owner's decisions it's not just how you play on the pitch
02:58but when you've got everything in line and got that you know community I guess across the rest of the
03:03fan base it's it's a different kettle of fish it's a way that the football club then runs can then be
03:08trusted you have the full backing across everything. And I think that's one thing that a lot of the bigger
03:13clubs really have struggled with in recent years. Right and next one we need to talk about is Dan
03:17HLTCO. Everyone loves Dan. Everyone loves HLTCO. If you're on Twitter you'll have almost definitely
03:23seen his content. And the view from the stands here for Crystal Palace was that they had finished
03:27eighth. They're completely exceeding expectations this season. And what we've got to say is Oli
03:32Glasner is a superb manager. Now this pains me to say it as a Brighton fan I've got to be honest I
03:37really don't like giving credit to Crystal Palace. But unfortunately credit is where it's due and I've got to
03:42say the form that they're in is very impressive. But the way they play now is probably the one thing
03:47that Crystal Palace have really lacked and been starving for really in recent years. As we all know
03:52Palace have been you know maybe a little bit more behind in terms of the project thing in terms of
03:56the recruiting thing. But their academy and the way they raise players is genuinely top notch.
04:01They've been able to generate players like Michael Alisse who is now via Munich. Ebe Eze has done so well
04:06earned his England call up. Their squad's becoming a lot more fluid and dynamic in the way they play.
04:11And actually their overloads and high pressing is one thing that a lot of teams haven't been able to deal
04:15with. And here's the one from Dan here. His underrated player this season to watch was Daniel
04:20Munoz which is a huge shout to be honest because Munoz you know he came in the end of January last
04:25season he was a bit of a cult hero but he's really taken off this season for Crystal Palace. In fact he
04:30scored recently against oh god but you know you've got to say this the way they use their fullbacks now
04:37they now play a three at the back they're very very good at pushing on forwards and actually their
04:41overload in midfield is very hard to deal with. And because they're so well structured it's
04:45very hard to deal with on the point of view when you're looking at this Champions League
04:48running. And eighth place now in theory could get you into the Conference League. And for Palace
04:54that's a huge huge push on from you know the club as I said only a couple of years ago even last year
04:59really. Under Roy Hodgson that was feeling a little bit like it was going nowhere. A lot of fans were
05:04against Parrish at a point you know wondering whether that you know he can keep up with the rest of the
05:08Premier League and the spending that they haven't been able to do. And as we've seen it's really changed
05:13for them. Dan's called that the key player this season would be Adam Ward. Now unfortunately he
05:16did suffer with a bit of injuries but he's never seen anyone so composed as him in a Palace shirt
05:21aged only 20 years old. And what a signing he's been from Blackburn by the way. One of those players
05:26that can make football look so easy, very effortless, so good on the ball, in tight space as well, great
05:32on the turn. His skill set is very very good to see. He's got a good passing range and I think he's one
05:37of those players that again will be an England player regularly at some point soon. You see
05:42that England squad is stacked with talent as we know but I think Wharton really is at the pinnacle
05:46of it. And there's another successful call from Dan. In Dan's words here last season was famine then
05:51feast. The Hudson era has grown stale again but Glasner had us all believing. And I'd probably call
05:57that really a complete credit to Oliver Glasner. So as hard as that was to do Crystal Palace fans and Dan
06:04you're welcome. You can clip this for as long as you like. Right now this is the best call so far.
06:10This is probably my favourite one and I want to keep this, I didn't want to keep this too Premier
06:15League heavy to be honest. I wanted to start tapping into a few others but I seem to have just
06:19turned the page again, moved on to Everton, literally the next club along here and Joe Strange
06:24got this spot on. Now okay Everton started the season horrendously. Everything was very toxic there but
06:30the way that they've changed now, the new owners have come in, the new stadium's being built
06:35and one thing, one call, if I was to mention one thing about Everton this year, forget everything
06:40else. You think of David Moyes and you think of Prime Barclays being back, let's call it that.
06:45And Joe here said, the fans opinion on the gaffer, who at the time was Sean Dyche,
06:50positive. Dyche is stubborn and undervalues creativity but that isn't the worst thing for
06:55us right now. If he left, he should be replaced by David Moyes. The finances are tight, okay,
07:01bit different now. But Kieran McKenna, if they're not. And I think really the takeover with Moyes
07:06there at Everton, it's really a vision to what the Premier League is now as opposed to maybe what
07:10it was even last season. And this old style football but the football that guarantees your
07:15results, it's aggressive, it's in your face, it's getting the most really out of the players that
07:18you've got available to you. And that's one thing that probably Everton were always remembered
07:22for at Goodison, you know, being the tough place to go to. And David Moyes has really
07:26revitalised that there. He's brought back that passion, he's got that energy back there,
07:30earning really, really good wins like the 4-0 at Leicester which really kept them away from
07:34that drop zone which a lot of people had them written off at one point in the season.
07:38Earning points against the likes of Arsenal, beating Spurs, they were narrow really to lose
07:43against Liverpool in the Merseyside derby. So a lot of good results there and I give so much
07:48credit to David Moyes. And finally, just the thing on Everton really, the biggest change is
07:53obviously their ownership. And before the season, Joe said that the big talking point will be whether
07:57their new majority owners, which are obviously in now, will actually complete the takeover as
08:01Farad Moshiri's disastrous reign can't end soon enough. Now if you were to tell Everton fans now
08:08that you're going to be going to this lovely new 50,000, 45,000 stadium, it's a beautiful ground by
08:13the looks of it, it's very Bundesliga vibes. And you're also in a position where you're comfortably
08:17safe. You could now be looking up the league a little bit more. David Moyes, only a couple of
08:21years ago, won a European trophy with West Ham in the Conference League. Everything's changed
08:25around the atmosphere of the entire football club. And you've got to give a lot of credit to
08:30Joe here, who's predicted it correct again. Okay, Southampton obviously relegated for what the
08:36earliest has ever been in Premier League history. Their nine points could maybe not even change from
08:42that point of view. So as far as Robert Hudson's concerned, it's been an abysmal season, right?
08:47But there is one thing that he mentioned very successfully and very well actually in his
08:51pre-season preview. And that was Tyler Dibbling as one to look out for. And Tyler Dibbling,
08:56he said, look out for him. He's another one off the academy production line. Last season,
09:01he dominated matches for the under-21s at just 17 years old. And if you could have told Robert
09:06here that by May, not even by May, by April, you would have been having your call of Tyler Dibbling
09:12now being touted as a £100 million footballer. Mind-blowing. Incredible player, really. Is
09:19he worth £100 million? Maybe, maybe not. I could let others decide that. In the modern
09:23day, you really associate wingers to being a little bit smaller, a bit pacier, you know,
09:27ones that can cut inside and do some damage in that respect. I think Dibbling's a little
09:31bit different. I think he's very, very strong as well. Players are trying to shrug him off
09:35the ball. It's very difficult, which gives him a little bit of a different physical presence.
09:38You know, he's a bit more chance creation based. He's very good with his passing. He's not maybe
09:42got the most amount of goals in the Premier League this season, but to be able to break
09:46in the way he has, he's played most games for them. I think he's played around 27 games
09:50from this season in the Premier League. That's a very, very respectable amount of games for
09:54a young player. I suppose from his point of view, sometimes it is just best to stick around
09:58at a club. You know, if you do go down, you get the opportunity to get a bit of experience,
10:02become a big fish in a small pond, if you like, in a championship, and then you can fire
10:07your team back up into the Premier League. And sometimes that can be the best thing that
10:10players do, as you see the likes of Joao Pedro at Watford when he went down with them. A lot
10:15of people question whether he would just leave straight away. Karl Walker-Paters did the same
10:19with them when they got relegated originally. So there's a lot of players that have done a
10:22similar type of career path. But I think with Dibbling's point of view, and the call here
10:27from Robert, exceptional, mate. You got it spot on. We're going to dip into the championship
10:32a little bit here. So this is a good one. I want to give a good bit of credit here to
10:36Natalie Bromley, who has completely gone bold. Gone bold. And that's what we like to see on
10:41the fan predictions. Go bold. And as Natalie said here, we'll finish as champions. Burnley
10:46are the leaders for the clean sheets this season. They've got 27, which is insane, right? That's
10:52a clean sheet in 69% of their games. That's 39 matches and 27 clean sheets. That's crazy numbers,
11:00by the way. So at the time of recording this anyway, so this could change. But Burnley
11:04have only conceded 12 goals in the championship this season. 12? I think, no, I'm sure it is.
11:11It has to be. That's the lowest ever in the championship by some margin. The lowest ever
11:17goals conceded in a championship season were Watford and Preston, right? They both conceded
11:22just 30 goals respectively. Those campaigns are insane, right? You'd say, oh, 30 goals all season.
11:27That's amazing. But for Burnley to only get 12, 12 goals conceded this season, you've got to say
11:35what a shout for a start from Natalie. Because let's talk about that idea. Because I was going to
11:40mention Leeds, but I didn't want to mention them too much because for obvious reasons, as they've
11:45had their wobble and they've fallen back down. And a lot of people really would have said Leeds
11:50will win the league. You know, they are by far the best team in the league. They've got a stacked
11:54squad despite losing a lot of players. You know, they've obviously reinvested pretty well
11:58and they've been pretty much top of the league or second all season. But for Natalie to have
12:04the confidence, and I love it, to say champions, that is superb. However, when it comes to Leeds
12:09here, Daniel Chapman's had a very funny comment here because he said, we'll finish first or else.
12:16And it's happened again, hasn't it, with Leeds? It's, I don't know how they do it. Season's
12:20not over yet. But I just, they're such a strange team when it gets to April, you know. And even
12:27before April, to be honest, the latter end of the last five, six games, this Leeds wobble seems to
12:32happen annually, no matter what manager they bring in. Last season was frustrating. We can blame
12:37Leicester riding roughshed over profit and sustainability rules or applaud it such being
12:41relentless. But ultimately, Leeds were top with eight games to play and didn't go up. The big talking
12:47point is whether Daniel Farker can live up to being a promotion expert second time around, he won't
12:52get a third chance. And there you go. That'll be this, this, this happened again with Leeds. Whether
12:56they will be able to turn it around again, who knows. But as Daniel says, quite rightly, it's, it's a
13:02strange, strange thing to be able to call. Especially for a promotion expert like Daniel Farker. Okay, right,
13:08I had to mention mine, didn't I? Because Brian Noval being here. I wrote it back before the season
13:12started, that we'd finished seventh. And I got a bit of pelters for it at the time. People were
13:17saying, oh, Ryan, you know, big, big shift happening at Brighton. And quite rightly, I wasn't
13:21completely sold on whether the manager would be right for us. And that, you know, that jury's
13:25still out, perhaps. We've had a bit of a wobble in our own rights. I'm not completely satisfied
13:31with how Brighton are playing. We've probably suffered quite a lot tactically and missing the
13:35old Deserby style of play. But to say that we finished seventh, I think was quite a fair claim.
13:42I think we obviously spent 200 million. And yes, the 200 million looks quite bad out of
13:47context. But once you've made 225 million from Chelsea alone, you're reinvesting that
13:52into players like Jorginho Ruta, an ex-Leeds player at the top level, has really kicked on
13:57and probably been one of our best players this season. I think we've maybe just struggled
14:02a bit in terms of getting that team to gel quite quickly. We've maybe not had that instant
14:08replacement for certain areas. I think centre-backs-wise, we've really struggled a lot. I mean, injuries
14:13are notable within the squad. But you've got players like Lewis Dunkner, who's around 33
14:17years old. Adam Webster is quite injury-prone as a player. And Jan-Paul Van Hecker, as we
14:22know, is now suspended after getting sent off. We're in a very difficult scenario as a club
14:27where we're pushing and we want to be in the Europa League. And I think that was the expectation
14:31and aim from the club. But maybe just not ready tactically to be able to do that, to be able to get
14:36the players on side and play in the same way. That style of play that's so associated with
14:40Brighton is maybe just lacking that little bit. And really, that's where we want to be.
14:45But I'm going to say my seventh prediction is still on. We're ninth at the moment. I think we
14:49can still do it. I will say, though, I had a bit of a stinger with saying that our most underrated
14:53player is Pascal Gross, who I still believe, by the way, is one of the most underrated players
14:58in Premier League history. And I'm going to stand by that. However, yeah, obviously, he did go to
15:02Borussia Dortmund at the end of the summer transfer window. So we'll see. And there you have it. The
15:084-4-2 season preview, 2024-25 season. I still think if you were to look at this now, if you were
15:15to get one of these and have a look back through, there are some absolute stinkers, but there are
15:20some absolutely brilliant calls. So shout out to everybody that we mentioned, of course. And
15:24my seventh place prediction, it could still come true. I'm going to hold out some hope.
15:28But thank you all for watching, of course. Please make sure to like, comment and subscribe. And
15:32make sure you're following 4-4-2 on absolutely everything there is, too. My name has been
15:36Ryan, and I'll see you very, very soon for another one. A bit of a different setup as well. Still
15:40got the shirts in the background, but I couldn't be too bright and biased. But until next time,
15:44thank you very much for having me on, and we'll see you soon. And goodbye.