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The Squareball podcast.

Hello there. Welcome to this special episode of the Square Ball. End of season. Episode now,

as we wrap up our predictions from the last season to see just how foolish we were and just how much egg we have on our faces. It's down with Michael and Rob, as we look back over the last 10 months or thereabouts at Ellen Road in a show that is brought to you by Levi Solicitors, who have been with us right across the season and for many seasons now, Michael. And why is that?

Because of these ad reads, I think is the main thing, which works so well for them because of the quality. And also, they are doing well as a business because they've just been around forever, aren't there? Because they're good at Wells Probate and Convainting. And all the other. And all the other stuff. And all the other stuff. If you can find a full of their legal services on their website, which is levice solicitors.com.com. UK forward slash the square ball. You will also get a 10% discount on your legal fees on that entire range of services with full details and terms on the website, loads of legal services for you and your business. All right, then, let's rewind to August.

And we recorded the original predictions episode around the 12th of August, but then we

released it a few days after that.

Now, in the meantime, we'd signed Dominic Calvert Lewin.

And because I was on holiday at this point, I sent my predictions in from holiday, last

of all, after we'd signed DCL.

But the original predictions from everybody else were somewhat skewed by the absence of a striker at that point, because the window was still open.

So our predictions were collectively, not entirely accurate, but some pretty good ones, actually, looking back on it.

Should we deal with finishing position first, and then we'll touch on the fact that we

revisited these predictions on New Year's Eve, so approximately, you know, halfway through

the season, and we allowed ourselves the luxury of revising them if we wanted, you know,

did we decide to stick or twist?

Right then,ishing position first.

So we consulted all the lads who work in the square ball team, and there are nine of us.

They were all broadly speaking of a similar theme where the finishing position was concerned, I would say.

Audie was the most optimistic by saying 10th because, and I quote, the Premier League looks dog shit.

And then in the revisited show on New Year's Eve said, it's not impossible. And do you know what? He was nearly right. We could have finished 12. We could have a different spin on stuff. We could have got 10th. Yeah. Couldn't we really? It could have anything up to, well, Sunderland probably felt achievable in the end. Yeah, as I said on the match ball, I am quite relieved that we've finished just out of distance of the European places because it would have stung a bit if you looked back going, oh, we're only three points off Europe. What could have been? We could have gone to Austria v. N next season. You got it just about on the money, Rob, actually, because your August prediction was 14th or 15th, but then you said 9th if two attackers assigned. So that was pre-Calvert Lewin, but we only got the one. That's true, yeah. It was two wingers, the ones that Farco was asking for, that I thought could have made the difference. And maybe they would have done. But yeah, 14th. Can we stop there on our revisiting our predictions? Well, in your revisited, you were nearly right. You said ninth, still, you stuck with your ninth tongue-in-cheek, but your more sensible prediction was 15th. So you were about bang on, to be fair, so capped off to you. Michael, again, you started off with incredibly pessimistic 17th to 18th, but again, pre-Calvert Lim. It was truthfully, it was 18th. I think you, yeah, you bullied me into saying 17th at the time. And rightly so. There was general disquiet in the room. I think I was called a miserable bastard, so I was like, all right, 17th. That's absolutely fine. But we didn't have Calvert Luan. Well, I was going to say when we revisited it, when we revisited it, at the turn of the year, you admitted that your initial prediction was without Calvert Lewin,

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