Aug 22, 2026 · 49 min · 9 segments
Ben and Merl preview the new Premier League season, including a look at our top 10 and FPL teams. We also look at a sport that Ben thinks might require the most complete set of skills of all.
yeah it's always an exciting time isn't it no matter who you support you always do have that small sliver of hope even if you've experienced 32 seasons of it not quite turning out like that that maybe this year will be different but it's been a bit of a weird time actually this is probably I would say for sports or podcasts the most difficult time in our season it's definitely when sport is at it's I think we're about to kick off into a whole feast of sport running up to Christmas.
But we talked about this the other week, didn't we? That if you actually look at all the sports worldwide, end of July and August is the quietest time for sport.
And we were talking off air, weren't we? That there's not as much happening.
Your roundup's not going to be as absolutely action-packed as some of them might be in April or May or January, February time.
Yeah, exactly.
I think, you know, at the moment, there's three global sports.
three sports leagues that dominate the kind of global market the nba the nfl and the premier league and while all of those are off it always feels a little bit quieter in the first part of summer you get a bit of a surge of um well this year the world cup but in other years like olympics athletics championships world world championships um Lots of the ashes, but yeah, this summer has been after the world cup's finished.
It's been a quiet one.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And even like some of those sports that you just mentioned, like the crickets just started again, the England test series as England fans and the last major was mid July.
So we haven't got any more majors in the golf this year.
So the F one's had a summer break and is back this weekend.
So it does just leave you this bit of a lull, whether you're a generalist sports fan, like we are, or a specific sport you're left waiting a little bit maybe enjoying the summer sun and not stressing out about your favourite sports person not doing well maybe it's a blessing
yeah absence makes the heart grow fonder as they say yes but I will I'll do a round up then just because there's a few bits to touch on then we're going to talk about the Premier League I'm going to talk about some teams do a bit of a team based draft talk about our fantasy Premier League teams with the with the season starting tonight but yeah I'll go through what's happened in the last few weeks Not too much.
We have had the European Athletics Championship for Team GB.
Amy Hunt was the star with four gold medals across the 100 metres and 200 metres and sprint relays.
We've got the US Open tennis starting soon.
Fabrizio Romano, who we mentioned last week, the transfer guru, he announced that Alcaraz will return for the tournament.
So a bit of extra excitement there.
Set to be the biggest purse ever in tennis, that tournament.
In cricket, England have been on top in the rain-affected first two days of their test match against Pakistan at Headingley in Leeds.
In the MLB, the National League teams are coming out on top generally there.
yeah it's always an exciting time isn't it no matter who you support you always do have that small sliver of hope even if you've experienced 32 seasons of it not quite turning out like that that maybe this year will be different but it's been a bit of a weird time actually this is probably I would say for sports or podcasts the most difficult time in our season it's definitely when sport is at it's I think we're about to kick off into a whole feast of sport running up to Christmas.
But we talked about this the other week, didn't we? That if you actually look at all the sports worldwide, end of July and August is the quietest time for sport.
And we were talking off air, weren't we? That there's not as much happening.
Your roundup's not going to be as absolutely action-packed as some of them might be in April or May or January, February time.
Yeah, exactly.
I think, you know, at the moment, there's three global sports.
three sports leagues that dominate the kind of global market the nba the nfl and the premier league and while all of those are off it always feels a little bit quieter in the first part of summer you get a bit of a surge of um well this year the world cup but in other years like olympics athletics championships world world championships um Lots of the ashes, but yeah, this summer has been after the world cup's finished.
It's been a quiet one.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And even like some of those sports that you just mentioned, like the crickets just started again, the England test series as England fans and the last major was mid July.
So we haven't got any more majors in the golf this year.
So the F one's had a summer break and is back this weekend.
So it does just leave you this bit of a lull, whether you're a generalist sports fan, like we are, or a specific sport you're left waiting a little bit maybe enjoying the summer sun and not stressing out about your favourite sports person not doing well maybe it's a blessing
yeah absence makes the heart grow fonder as they say yes but I will I'll do a round up then just because there's a few bits to touch on then we're going to talk about the Premier League I'm going to talk about some teams do a bit of a team based draft talk about our fantasy Premier League teams with the with the season starting tonight but yeah I'll go through what's happened in the last few weeks Not too much.
We have had the European Athletics Championship for Team GB.
Amy Hunt was the star with four gold medals across the 100 metres and 200 metres and sprint relays.
We've got the US Open tennis starting soon.
Fabrizio Romano, who we mentioned last week, the transfer guru, he announced that Alcaraz will return for the tournament.
So a bit of extra excitement there.
Set to be the biggest purse ever in tennis, that tournament.
In cricket, England have been on top in the rain-affected first two days of their test match against Pakistan at Headingley in Leeds.
In the MLB, the National League teams are coming out on top generally there.
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