In our first full episode of 2018, Jon Steele and Steve Barme preview the new J2 season.

In Part 1 Jon and I recap the 2017 season (to 21:00), then Steve joins me to discuss Omiya and fellow relegated clubs Kofu and Niigata (to 44:40) before Jon returns to look ahead at the promotion/playoff prospects for last season's top half, and if there are any slivers of hope for teams who finished in the bottom half in the last campaign. We finish by sticking our necks out predicting the end of season top six.

#Apology to Tokyo Verdy supporters# Unfortunately a segment where Jon discussed Verdy's superb rise to fifth last season fell on the cutting room floor, but trust me, he was effusive in his praise.

#Request# I wasn't entirely happy with the audio quality during the editing process, if you found sections of the pod difficult to listen to quality-wise please let me know in the comments, or on twitter @JTalkPod.