Reds have two wins out of two although I am not sure we can do this 36 more times. We face Arsenal at home tomorrow and no one who isn’t a Red thinks we have a chance of winning.

And, it is at Anfield isn’t it? Arsenal have not won here for more than 10 years.

Arsenal at home in August

• Memories of 2019 - 3-1 win? And there have been other wins in August against the pretenders

• Oh wait a minute, word on the street is that Arsenal have won the transfer window and have built a title winning squad. Gyokeres, Madueke, Eze (maybe)

• But jeez fellas, you’ve ramped up the perennial runners up in a way that I am not sure is justified.

• Team selection? Gravenberch, Macca, Bradley, Robbo? 

• Set pieces and defensive frailties

• Is a point a good result? Haven’t seen a single pundit make the case for a Liverpool win.

We’ll be back with a review of the Arsenal game. Thanks to Enrique for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us.
If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic  

Welcome dear listener to First State Kopites. It’s August 27th. I’m Paul, joined by Daz. Little different today - just focused on reviewing the Newcastle game - 3-2 to the Reds. Lot to go at - hope to bring some perspective to what ends up being a nice, comfortable:()  win.

Short version Newcastle turned this into a battle - with the rhetoric beforehand and the actions of certain players. I was fearful for our team’s safety.

• Context - 2 very difficult games against them and their tactics last season. I think it plays into the cautious approach. One of harder aways anyway. And then there’s Isak.

• Theme #1 - More defensive woes:

• Overall, their onslaught and carnage - words used by the commentator. Couple of chances around the 30 minutes mark, maybe 60 to 65 and then 85 to 95 there was lots of getting it launched. 

• A Hooper call every time they fell down - 62% possession and still lost the foul count 17-15. Forever the minecraft man (Ref Cam). How about we call it both ways was Virg’s clear message, but the cards for Liverpool were right, but they appeared a lot more latitude (Trippier, multiple Guimares fouls) 

• Kerkez -  indefensible defending - aside from that was he OK?

• Konate - the high line for the goal - the unfortunate deflection. Missed passes, the unnecessary push on Barnes.

• Lots of long balls from us, weren’t winning enough of the second balls

• Theme #2 - the major characters in the battle:

• Some unhinged emotion out there - determined to intimidate Hugo Ekitike

• Guimares (yellow for dissent, nothing for all the fouls), Burn (yellow for 2 nasty little fouls on Mo) and then Gordon seemed determined to inflict physical pain on us. Aside from kicking Cody Gakpo in the head, not so much from Joelinton.

• Tonali - funny that he injured himself, needs a few lessons from Gordon.

• Note on time wasting - at 30 minutes self-aware Geordie pointing at his watch.

• Theme #3 - bright spots. The watch without the same jeopardy - Newcastle  0.98 xG

• Another late winner against Newcastle. 

• At 2-0 it looked so under control until the high balls/long throws finally have an impact - before 55, we look so comfortable.

• 100th minute - best piece of footy, well if Curtis had connected with Mo’s pass in the first half it might have been that.

• Rio, Ekitike, Gravenberch (his goal was not ‘out of nothing’), VVD, Dom! And Ali.

• Might take time to see the very best of Wirtz but there are some signs

We’ll be back with a preview of the Arsenal game, and then a review of that match next week.. Thanks to Daz for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us.
If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic 

Welcome dear listener to First State Kopites. The podcast of the Premier League Champions. It's the fourth podcast of season 7. I’m Paul, joined by Sean and Daz. The new season started Friday night - we will reflect on the game against Bournemouth, look ahead to Newcastle and take a sideways glance at what went on elsewhere.

Part One: Bournemouth at home:

• Acknowledging Diogo - beautiful from start to finish; NBC with surprising empathy. Lovely celebrations (inc Luis Diaz). Bournemouth fans had a Diogo banner

• At 36 minutes, Dixon says that Bournemouth have quieted the crowd - Hugo scores in the 37th

• They kept going on about the atmosphere at Old Trafford - Robbie Mustoe was great in calling out how special Anfield is

• No room for racism people

• Theme #1 - Defensive woes?

• Bournemouth physicality and Taylor’s light touch

• The left back story - Kerkez being targeted? Semenyo certainly played down that side. On replay he actually looked OK. Frimpong was relatively safe. 

• 3 big chances given up - only 17 given up in the 17 home games before we won the title I read. All from transition.

• At set pieces - they had a line of Gakpo, Etitike, VVD, Szobozlai and Ibou - Konate won a lot of headers.

• Theme #2 - Attacking riches

• So much verve and what could have been once these guys have even more time together

• Hugo Ekitike - the movement, the ability to play between the lines cf Gyokeres

• At 2-0, looks like a third is coming

• Chiesa - the song? the finish

• VAR - Michael Oliver and ‘a terrible excuse for a poor decision’

• Theme #3 - control vs. greater risk

• Subs made us look worse - until we settled down

• Mac Allister - Wirtz - Ekitike, boy is that exciting, but could mean greater risk

• Ali’s 300th appearance

Part Two: Newcastle away on Monday night

• Team selection? Gravenberch, Macca, Bradley?

• Newcastle’s industrial midfield and wingers in attack

• Is a point a good result?

Part Three - Looking ahead at our ‘rivals’

• Arsenal and Man United - Hot takes

• Man City - they are back…

• Chelsea - ‘World Champions’ (insert throwing up emoji).

We’ll be back with a review of the Newcastle game. Thanks to Daz and Sean for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us.
If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic 

Welcome dear listener to First State Kopites. The podcast of the Premier League Champions. It's the third podcast of season 7. I’m Paul, joined by Justin and Daz for the first time this season. The new season starts in 3 days - we will reflect on several things, including another week of Newcastle Gutter watch, the Community Shield and also look ahead as Liverpool seek to defend their title.

Part One: Interesting/difficult pre season:

• Acknowledging Diogo - 

• Played 6/7 pre-season games including Community Shield last Sunday.

• Overall themes - good/exciting going forward, conceded goals on the break

• Ekitike, Wirtz

• Is assimilating all those new players realistic?

• Remember 2022-23 Community Shield - Darwin etc.

• Morton, Luis Diaz and Darwin departures - 169GBP. Incomings - 250GBP. Still looks like they have money to spend

• Isak and the Newcastle Gutter

• The Guehi saga?

Part Two: End of the phony war

• Kick off at Anfield on Friday against a Bournemouth team that has lost its defence

• Team selection? No Gravenberch but Macca should be back?

• Anything but a win is going to be super deflating.

• Is a Champions League run more realistic given the bedding in period?

Part Three - Looking ahead at our ‘rivals’

• Arsenal - Gyokeres fever - he scored against Athletic Club.

• Man United still attracting players? Sesko at 79m GBP. Baleba?

• They meet at the weekend. What to expect?

• Man City - too many unknowns? 

• Cherki not Wirtz. Nico Gonzalez and Savinho are surplus to requirements already

• Chelsea keep on buying - will need to now they have lost Colwill. Expectations - what financial shenanigans allow them to make so much back from their sales?

We’ll be back with a review of the first game. We had some technical difficulties trying to live pod before the Palace - hoping to work that out for some post-matches. Thanks to Daz and Justin for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us.
If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic

Welcome dear listener to the First State’s second podcast of season 7. The podcast of the Premier League Champions. I’m Paul and I am joined by Enrique. The new season starts in 2 weeks - we continue to look ahead as Liverpool seek to defend their title and we’ll reflect on what’s happened this summer..

Part One: The shadow hanging over this season:

• The Diogo patch on the shirt - good move but it feels like we’ve moved onto pre-season and transfers a little too quickly for me. Even the simple fact that Liverpool have lost a very important player and will need to replace him.

• Luid Diaz leaving feels more difficult than it would have been.

• What do we make of that move?

Part Two - the summer so far:

• Transfers and more transfers

• Ekitike joins - 79m Euros?

• Biggest summer since 1987 - Beardsley, Barnes, Houghton and Aldridge

• Fume about Liverpool’s hypocrisy

• Liverpool executives talk about being the biggest club in the world

• Adidas launch tomorrow

• 3 games - Preston, Milan and Yokohama

• Rio Ngumoha 

• Florien Wirtz

• Defensive frailties?

Part Three - Looking ahead:

• Lots of chat about Isak - Indykaila must have an apple tag in his luggage

• Only Mo Salah had more goals than him last year…

• Athletic Club from Bilbao - 2 games

• Community Shield - August 10th vs. Palace

• Elsewhere:

• Gyokeres fever? Eze would concern me more

• Man United can still attract players? Sesko?

• Chelsea keep on buying - how will Xavi Simmons fare?

We will be back with more previews of the 2025-26 season. Thanks to Enrique for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us.
If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic

Welcome dear listener to the First State’s podcast of Premier League Champions. It’s the first episode of our seventh season. I’m Paul and I am joined by Sean. The new season starts in just over 3 weeks - we’ll start to look ahead as Liverpool seek to defend their title and we’ll reflect on the sadness of the last 3 weeks.

We are trying something new - we are at the home of the Official Liverpool Supporters Club of Delaware - Catherine Rooney’s - and for the first time in our 7 years of podcasting we are face to face. It’s fair to say this will be an experiment - please offer your feedback on how it has worked.

Part One: Oh he wears the number 20

• July 3rd - we awoke to the news that Diogo J. and his brother Andre Silva had died in a car accident in Spain.

• While we never finished our season reviews, it just didn’t feel right to me to think about football. I know some people watched the Copa Gianni but that was never going to be a big deal for me.

• For almost 2 weeks it hasn’t felt right to do anything - I thought Slot’s comments about following your emotions really captured the mood.

• In an age where honor seems like a joke, Diogo is the type of person you want representing your club. Not that he was a saint, but by all accounts was genuinely a good person. It is a shame it takes something like this to highlight these things

Part Two - the summer so far:

• Some outs - Kelleher, Quansah and that other fella (Nat Phillips?)

• Plenty of ins - Wirtz, Frimpong, Kerkez (Guehi?)

• Copa Gianni - love that it was trailing the NBA summer league on ESPN’s homepage (Chelsea get to wear that stupid badge for 4 years)

• Lots of chat about adding a striker - Darwin is definitely leaving?

• Woman’s Euros have been boss

Part Three - Looking ahead:

• Lots of chat about adding a striker - Ekitike, maybe Isak, Rodrygo or Wissa? (Osimhen?)

• Aren’t we short of a central defender? (Need a young prospect type to replace Quansah, Guehi would be Konate replacement IMO)

• Luis Diaz

• The Asia tour - 10 days?

• Community Shield - August 9th

We will be back with more previews of the 2025-26 season. Thanks to Sean for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us. 

If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on X  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic

Welcome dear listener to the podcast of Premier League Champions. I’m Paul and I am joined by Enrique and Daz. The season is over - well unless you ignore Gianni Infantino’s narcissistic monstrosity taking pace here in the US in the next few months. We are going to do one of our look backs at the season, Being Champions, The Big Red Weekend, and maybe we’ll start to look ahead as Liverpool seek to defend their title..

Part One: Season highlights:

• Arne Slot - 26 games unbeaten

• Win over City in November - Guardiola’s 6 fingers after we beat them 2-0 - yes we have won that many European cups

• Kelleher appeared in a ton of games October through December - Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Newcastle - Liverpool had no injuries

• Week 17 - Spurs 3, Liverpool 6 - 8 points clear with a game in hand

• United home - the conditions were really awful.

• Matchweek 26 - Performance at City away - Mo:). Had not lost against us in 8 at the Emptihad before that.

• 12 points ahead with 9 to play - loss to PSG and Newcastle. Team started playing with some fear.

• …..until Mac Allister scored against Spurs!! That day was joyous…

• Final game and the parade. Last time we 3 spoke, we’d just lost to Chelsea

Part Two - Liverpool as Champions and the chasing pack

• ‘Nobody expected this’. Well they got 82 points with a team decimated by injuries and handling the Jurgen emotion.

• VVD - imperious for the most part - more strikers trying to pressure him now

• Mo Salah - 29 Premier League goals plus 18 assists

• 186 goals, one behind Andy Cole which will put him 4th early next season

• 245 for Liverpool - 40 behind Roger Hunt in second place

• Arsenal’s over-reliance on set-pieces, and their inability to defend them was quite a feature. Complete inability to find resilience - the complaints had to have an effect didn’t they?

• ‘The level we play is so high, but something is missing’ Arteta said after dropped points against Villa at home

• Overplaying their hand with the 5-1 win over Man City

• Did you see the decision to disallow the Villa goal - leads to 2 oli state teams in the Champions League….

• FOOTNOTE - Oliver refereed the United home game, Forest at home and Everton away. 

• He refereed 3 of the 9 games before we won the title where we dropped points

• His record is 6-8-6 for us - interesting?

Part Three - Looking ahead:

• Transfers

• Club World Cup impact?

• Style next season?

• They are back in early July - lots of time for them to work on new stuff

We will be back with more reflections before we are done with the 2024-25 season. Thanks to Daz and Enrique for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us. 
If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic

Welcome dear listener to the podcast of the 2024-25 Premier League Champions. I’m Paul and I am joined by Sean. We are recording this a week after the Reds picked up the Premier League trophy and had a very big parade. We’ll do a short review of the Palace game, look back at the big red weekend, reflect on PSG's Champions League win and then start to look ahead as Liverpool seek to defend their title..

Part One - Reds draw with Crystal Palace at Anfield in session ending game - xG 2.14 to 1.77 - 35 to 15 touches in the opposition box

• Game, slow start, real wall of sound for the last 10 to 15. 

• The non-call handball - Darren fuckin England again. Salah’s 29th goal

• Trophy lift and the Parade with one bad actor claiming too much of the narrative

• The national reporting of Liverpool’s title has been bizarre - Mo Salah just matched the goal involvement totals of Shearer and Cole in 4 less games. POY on every measure.

Part Two - knock out football is tough - Champions League Final

• 20th anniversary of Istanbul

• Lost to PSG on penalties and somehow Villa and Arsenal occupy more of the narrative

• Nation states - thanks to Clive Tyldelsey for bringing it up

Part Three - looking ahead:

• What is Richard Hughes trying to solve for - pace, between the lines, learning from PSG?

• Jeremy Frimpong

• Wirtz - looks like we will have to pay more

• Kerkez - personal terms agreed?

• 10m Euros for TAA, up to 19m GBP for Caoimnhe 

We will be back with more reflections and looking ahead. Thanks to Sean for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us. 

If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic

Welcome dear listener to the podcast of the 2024-25 Premier League Champions. I’m Paul and I am joined by Justin and Daz. We are recording this after the Reds went to Brighton via Dubai to record another loss that doesn’t matter. Briefer pod than normal with a short review of the Brighton game and then look ahead to the big red weekend where Liverpool will face Crystal Palace in a preview of the Community Shield on August 9th.

Today’s game - xG 2.34 to 2.11 - 25 shots to 18, 2 big chances to 3 for us. Salah 0.86 xG

• Overall approach

• Good game - no time wasting!

• Salah, Szobozlai, Elliott

• Bradley, Quansah

Palace at home in the last game

• Game itself - line up - TAA visibility?

• Who else are we bidding farewell to? Good question!!

• The Trophy lift

• Celebration plans?

• Istanbul 20th anniversary

We will be back after the Palace game and the celebrations. Thanks to Daz and Justin for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us. 

If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic

Welcome dear listener to the podcast of the 2024-25 Premier League Champions. I’m Paul and I am joined by Sean and Daz. We will review last weekend’s Arsenal game, and continue to reflect on a 20th top flight title. Obviously we will touch on the Trent situation. We will look ahead to the Brighton match and we’ll be looking around at what’s happening elsewhere.

Part One - Arsenal at home - xG 1.92 to 0.58 in the first half

• First half, Reds are generally magnificent

• Salah, Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo - well that was fun

• Second half - it was warm, Arsenal appeared to be beaten

• We just didn’t look the same team

• And then the booing started and the game and the whole future narrative about the game changes

• All Mikels are forever shady - ‘unscrupulous and fraudulent’

• Booing Thomas Partey

Part Two - ‘Brand Trent’, the crowd and the impact on the game - 1.99 xG conceded in the second half

• Suggestion that it was led by younger fans on the Kop

• ‘I don’t support the booing but he deserved it’

• Other issues that I’ve heard from Scousers who were upset

• ‘The ear cupping’

• The AI generated goodbye message

• You are leaving us:

• you’ve used the Scouser in our Team stuff to support your brand

• ‘Just a normal lad from Liverpool’

Part Three - 2 games left. 

• Mo Salah - FWA Player of the Year

• Brighton away on a Monday night. Nice opportunity for a beer with some friends?

• Signings - Frimpong and Kerkez seem to be high on the list. Not so much Huisen.

• Xabi Alonso, also going (back) to Franco’s boys:

We will be back after the Brighton game. Thanks to Daz and Sean for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us. Might need to record the night of to get it done.

If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic