Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher pick Premier League teams of the season so far and make 2025 predictions

Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher have picked their Premier League teams of the season so far and made their predictions for 2025.

Appearing on the final Monday Night Football of the year - in which Manchester United were beaten by Newcastle - the Insportly pundits chose their best XIs of the 2024/25 campaign so far.

Neville and Carragher also reflected on their predictions from the start of the season, now tweaking their choices for Premier League champions, relegated teams and more come May 25.

Read on to find out who they picked and why...

"Left-back I was struggling with badly. But Josko Gvardiol has scored four goals, he's always a threat.

"He's been the one that's consistently played and if I was picking a team right now and I was thinking about building a back four, he'd be the player that I'd put in at left-back.

"He's a goal threat, he does his job reasonably well at left-back. City giving goals where left, right and centre, I get that at the moment. It's not usual for them, it's not usual for him."

"Because William Saliba plays right centre-back and he's just edged it, I looked at the numbers this morning, it was one of [him and Gabriel]. It's not been the best start of the season for Arsenal but defensively they're still strong and he's still outstanding. So he was the obvious choice to play alongside [Virgil] Van Dijk.

"The more I watch Trent Alexander-Arnold, I think his defending's improved a lot. He's got a better intensity to his defending, I'm not saying he's perfect but I think he's got a far better attitude towards his defending right now than I've seen previously. I think in these last 12 months he's improved enormously and what he does on the ball I have to say is remarkable."

"Nikola Milenkovic is almost like the Van Dijk of Nottingham Forest. Gary went for Saliba, you had a toss up between Saliba and Gabriel for me. I was actually very close to putting Gabriel in for the defensive record but also because he's the most talked-about defender in the league from what he does at set-pieces. But I just feel what Nottingham Forest do defensively, a lot of it is about that.

"Ola Aina plays right-back and left-back. Every time I watch him he does that job on both sides, and every time I watch him I do look at him and think he could play for a team who expects to be in the Champions League every season.

"It's the defensive side of it that really impresses me so I felt like I had to get two of their defenders in there."

Neville on picking Arsenal as Premier League champions over Liverpool...

"Liverpool are massive favourites and in great form but there's still a long way to go. Arsenal have been through the mill in the last few years, they've gone to the wire and sometimes when you win your first title, it doesn't happen in the most expected way.

"It sticks out to me that if Van Dijk gets injured, it's a completely different story. If Arsenal can close the gap to six points on Wednesday, that could dwindle quite quickly if Van Dijk [was injured] - he's such an immense player for them.

"They've proven they can live without Alisson, who was equally as important a few years ago, but now with [Caoimhin] Kelleher backing him up, they've got that covered. They've got options going forward - [Mohamed] Salah would be a blow because he's world class - but they've got [Diogo] Jota, [Cody] Gakpo, [Darwin] Nunez.

"And when each of them score, they look as happy for each other and that's a worrying sign for the rest. They're all buying into each other and there's something going there between them as players.

"Things are going against Arsenal at the moment and they're hanging in there. They're the only team who can take it off Liverpool.

"Arsenal have got a resilience to them, they've got a back four that can hold it together and get through games and I think they'll attack better in the next part of the season. If they can get close towards the end, they could hunt Liverpool down."

Neville on Aston Villa finishing fifth...

"If Aston Villa drop out of the Champions League in February or March, Unai Emery is the type to really get them cracking towards the end of the season and they'll finish strong to get that fifth spot."

Carragher on Newcastle finishing fifth...

"Newcastle don't have the European situation, they could go a little bit further in the Carabao Cup. Villa just can't quite get going - they'll win a game, then they'll lose one or they'll draw games they should have won. It looks like Newcastle are getting into a real run of form and when I look at their midfield with [Alexander] Isak up front, it's looking pretty special."

Carragher on Nottingham Forest finishing sixth...

"Most people, even Nottingham Forest, would expect the teams we've got in the top four to finish above them.

"They've got a sizeable lead right now with only half a season to go. If they can get anywhere near what they've done, they can make it really hard for those teams."

Carragher on the relegation battle...

"I've been worried for Leicester since Ruud van Nistelrooy came in, even though some of the results have been good and the performance was good against Man City. But Leicester have given up a lot of opportunities and shots, big chances in all the games they've played in bar the Man City one.

"Because they expect to stay up, sometimes there can be negativity and they've already changed the manager. Ipswich won their third game of the season against Chelsea but there's still the feel-good factor. If they have a few bad results, they're not going to get too down on themselves, whereas at Leicester, the crowd can become quite negative."