The biggest story of this summer’s transfer window is Alexander Isak. The Newcastle United striker is so desperate for a move that he has not been training with Newcastle United, and on Tuesday night he finally went public about his desire to leave. On today’s Libero, Jonathan Wilson, Rory Smith and Jack Pitt-Brooke try to get to the bottom of the story of the summer. How outraged should we be by Isak’s conduct? Is he ‘on strike’, insulting the fans, or is he just playing one of the few cards av...
Aug 21, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 46
It’s the initialism on many people’s lips as the transfer window rages on. PSR, profit and sustainability rules: what are they good for? Miguel Delaney and Tariq Panja join John Brewin to pick through the weeds of surrounding what is, in reality, a rather a dry financial regulation covering accountancy to stop clubs spending beyond their means. Though, of course, as it’s modern football, where self-interest rules, it can never be that simple. Can there really be such a thing as financial fair pl...
Aug 19, 2025•53 min•Ep. 45
Is there a chance that Manchester City's imperial era is over, and might Arsenal-Liverpool be what replaces it? As everyone - again - waits for 'the City case' to end, there are other new uncertainties about Pep Guardiola and his team, whereas we know much more about what the champions and Arsenal are about. Could this herald a new rivalry at the top? Have Arsenal done enough? Have Liverpool done too much? And what of world champions, Chelsea? P1: (03:46) P2: (40:37) Join the Libero Fantasy Leag...
Aug 14, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 44
Jonathan Wilson sets the new season’s agenda for Jack Pitt-Brooke and John Brewin ahead of Friday’s big kick-off. The title, the drop, the transfer market coming back in a big way and (30:17) the current trend for hulking No 9s are all discussed. Every team gets a mention. Well, apart from one. Can you guess who? Produced by: Tom Bassam Join the Libero Fantasy League: fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/hjjtc0 or via the code hjjtc0 Email John with your Nectar point numbers at liberopodc...
Aug 12, 2025•57 min•Ep. 43
On today’s Libero Jack Pitt-Brooke, Jonathan Wilson and Tariq Panja turn their attention to the Championship. Is it still the most competitive league in the world? Or has that myth gone the same way as similar claims about the Premier League. With parachute payments distorting the competitive balance of the Championship so much, does it make the promotion race more predictable than ever? It’s hard to look past Ipswich Town for the top two places this season. And given the effect of parachute pay...
Aug 08, 2025•59 min•Ep. 42
He’s the undoubted coaching genius of 21st century football, admired, aspired to, much imitated and rarely bettered, but this summer has been one of unusual uncertainty for Pep Guardiola. Can Manchester City be revived? Does he have the players to achieve that? Jonathan Wilson, John Brewin and Miguel Delaney share their memories of Guardiola’s 17 years at the pinnacle of the game and (37:10) wonder if he has more reinventions to come. Produced by: Tom Bassam Email in at liberopodcast0@gmail.com ...
Aug 05, 2025•58 min•Ep. 41
On today’s podcast, James Horncastle, Jonathan Wilson and Jack Pitt-Brooke turn their attention to next week’s Champions League qualifiers, and particularly Jose Mourinho, who will take his Fenerbahce team to Feyenoord. So why are we still so fascinated by Mourinho even as his career moves further away from the top of the game? Does he embody something that the modern game is short of? And why did football start moving beyond him 10 or so years ago (35:07)? Ultimately it comes down to how you me...
Aug 01, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 40
James Horncastle and Miguel Delaney join John Brewin in extending congratulations to England’s Lionesses, and handle the hot potato of patriotism. Will our brave girls really get arrested for saying they’re English? After that (22:23), as Luis Diaz joins Bayern Munich, the stars align for Liverpool’s move for Alexander Isak. What’s brought on all this Liverpool spending? What now for Newcastle? As the picture clears on the summer of strikers, which other deals do they see happening before the wi...
Jul 29, 2025•54 min•Ep. 39
On today’s pod James Horncastle, Tariq Panja and Jack Pitt-Brooke continue the discussion on Manchester United and ask: is there any way back to the top for them? (38:00) James points to the examples of how the Milan clubs have dealt with their own loss of status in recent years, and Tariq explains how Valencia have gone from two-time Champions League finalists to a complete mess in recent years. So what does the path back from here to success look like for United? And can anyone guide them alon...
Jul 25, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 38
Hated, adored, never ignored, not least because their downfall entertains those who endured the glory years with gritted teeth. Jonathan Wilson, John Brewin and Rory Smith try to pinpoint where it went wrong for Manchester United, the club that was previously too big to fail, and is now so big a farce that nobody knows how long the decline can last and to what depths the fall will reach. Fergie, the Glazers, Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Ole, Bruno, Andy Tate: is no-one innocent? Produced by: Tom Bassa...
Jul 23, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 37
On today’s Libero, Jack Pitt-Brooke, Jonathan Wilson and Tariq Panja put the politics of the Club World Cup to one side and stick to the football. Specifically Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea, who can now call themselves world champions for the next four years. It has been a remarkable few months for Maresca and his team, and suddenly all of the doubts about his appointment, and indeed the whole Chelsea project, look like they have lost their sting. Maybe Todd Boehly and Clearlake know what they are doin...
Jul 18, 2025•52 min•Ep. 36
Now that the Club World Cup is over, Libero’s Miguel Delaney, James Horncastle and Rory Smith discuss what Gianni Infantino’s great jamboree means for football: not just the Saudi money that (indirectly) bankrolled the tournament, but the impetus of American private equity that brought it to this point. Before that, though, they unpack the defining image of the tournament, and possibly all modern football: President Donald Trump making it very clear that he would be celebrating Chelsea’s victory...
Jul 15, 2025•59 min•Ep. 35
Jonathan Wilson and Miguel Delaney discuss with John Brewin a big week for Arsenal, and a fever dream featuring one of the Gunners’ potential new strikers. Is the pressure on Mikel Arteta or is that just a perception created by the myth of managers being capable of dragging a team over 'the line', whatever that is? Also, (36:14) if Joe Root sat in the seat next to you in a pub, would you recognise the greatest living English cricketer? Or has football’s dominance dampened his legacy? Is Kevin Ke...
Jul 11, 2025•53 min•Ep. 34
On today’s episode Jack Pitt-Brooke, James Horncastle and Rory Smith discuss the Club World Cup, where James saw the start of the tournament, with Rory now in New York to see its climax. They ask whether this is the future of football, or just a very clear view of its present. Then conversation returns to last week’s question (27:05): what could threaten football’s dominant place in global culture? Could it be a threat from within football, with the game churning out so much content, or starting...
Jul 09, 2025•56 min•Ep. 33
This episode was recorded before the tragic news about the death of Diogo Jota and his brother. Jack Pitt-Brooke, Rory Smith and, eventually (18:41), James Horncastle try to get their heads around the sheer size of modern football. What happened to other sports? What special advantage does football have over everything else? And what is it about football that has allowed it to become the dominant cultural force in the modern world. And with football now in such a powerful position in the media l...
Jul 04, 2025•56 min•Ep. 32
Can women’s football sustain its exponential growth? Have the men just had a sliding doors without knowing it? The Women’s Euro 2025 gets underway in Switzerland this week with England nursing both (relatively) high hopes and (comparatively) low expectations. Why have two key players withdrawn from the squad? Can England retain their crown? What will failing to do so mean for Sarina Wiegman? And, if tournaments are always a barometer for the game, what will this say about women's football? Rory ...
Jul 02, 2025•55 min•Ep. 31
On today’s Libero, Jack Pitt-Brooke, Tariq Panja and John Brewin ask the big question of the summer so far: who is John Textor? And what is going on with the ownership of Lyon and Crystal Palace? Lyon used to be one of Europe’s model clubs but now they are facing the prospect of relegation to Ligue 2. What does this tell us, not only about Textor, but about the multi-club model in general? Is there any upside at all in it for clubs. There is one Textor club that is having a great summer, though,...
Jun 27, 2025•52 min•Ep. 30
Another summer, another tournament enlivened by marauding hordes of Argentina fans taking over beaches and shopping centres. On today’s Libero, Miguel Delaney, Rory Smith and Jonathan Wilson discuss what it is that makes Argentinian football culture so passionate and so appealing to outsiders, whether we overlook the reality of it in favour of the romance, and whether its allure is really a measure of our anxiety over the sanitised, commercial world of European football. James Horncastle dials i...
Jun 25, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 29
Here we go, right into transfer season, so Miguel Delaney, Rory Smith and Jonathan Wilson discuss how it all actually works from a media perspective, as well as how reporting on it has evolved into an entire industry of its own, an adjunct to the actual football. We also (38:06), aware of our own hypocrisy, discuss an actual big transfer: Florian Wirtz to Liverpool. Produced by: Tom Bassam Email in at liberopodcast0@gmail.com Follow us on X @podcast_libero Follow us on Bluesky @liberopodcast.bsk...
Jun 20, 2025•53 min•Ep. 28
Libero goes on location as James Horncastle reports from the Hard Rock Stadium after Boca Juniors v Benfica. Is our Italian stallion getting swept up by Gianni Infantino’s Club World Cup? Then, back across the Atlantic where John Brewin, Miguel Delaney and Tariq Panja share their thoughts on the tourney so far, where they’re watching on a channel better known for serial killer documentaries. Then, at (24:36), they start the real quiz. Transfers, better than the football itself? The team consider...
Jun 18, 2025•47 min•Ep. 27
It’s Club World Cup time, and Libero are just as excited as you are. Today, Miguel Delaney, John Brewin and Rory Smith discuss how this tournament came to be, and what its existence tells us about the power (im)balance of world football. In the second half (38:18), they discuss what the tournament might bring as a sporting spectacle: for all the misgivings over how it came about, will it produce any football worth watching? And is part of the problem that most football, no matter how artificial ...
Jun 13, 2025•58 min•Ep. 26
On today’s episode James Horncastle, Jonathan Wilson and Tariq Panja discuss Luciano Spalletti’s shock (is it?) departure as Italy boss and what bigger meaning does it point to about that state of the Azzurri. Before moving on to the status of the Nations League and asking whether the competition finally hit the big time? Or is it just another needless extra in football’s bursting-at-the seams calendar? In part two (27:24), Jonathan takes us on a magical mystery tour of his attempt to get to one...
Jun 11, 2025•56 min•Ep. 25
Today Jack Pitt-Brooke, James Horncastle and Rory Smith discuss the most wonderful time of the year: the transfer market between football executives. They ask why we have become so fascinated by sporting directors, and why some of them have become almost as famous as the players themselves. James explains the history of the role in Italy, and Rory and Jack try to work out when and why it finally became a big part of the Premier League landscape. (39:46) They try to pick apart what the role actua...
Jun 06, 2025•53 min•Ep. 24
With Paris Saint-Germain finally ending their cash soaked Qatari quest for a Champions League title John Brewin, Jonathan Wilson and Tariq Panja discuss how its likeable young team’s emphatic trouncing of Inter may have shielded the owners from the sort of scrutiny they should have received. They get it here. In part two (36:38), discussion turns to the Club World Cup and what FIFA’s game is with a competition that few had been asking for. Is bribing exhausted star clubs with a $125m prize for a...
Jun 04, 2025•53 min•Ep. 23
Brought to you live from the Allianz Arena Munich Football Arena, Miguel Delaney and Rory Smith discuss the fallout from PSG's destruction of Inter Milan in the Champions League final. Produced by: Tom Bassam Email in at liberopodcast0@gmail.com Follow us on X @podcast_libero Follow us on Bluesky @liberopodcast.bsky.social Follow us on Instagram @liberopod Subscribe to our YouTube channel @liberopod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 02, 2025•28 min•Ep. 22
Today on Libero Jack Pitt-Brooke, Rory Smith and James Horncastle look forward to Saturday’s Champions League final between Paris Saint Germain and Inter Milan. First up is the question of what actually makes for a good Champions League final, whether we ever get what we really want from these games, and whether there being no English team, Real Madrid or Barcelona makes this final a tough sell to English viewers. Does this make us - to borrow a phrase from the internet - ‘Premfaces’? (25:26) Th...
May 29, 2025•54 min•Ep. 21
As European domestic seasons draw to their close, Jonathan Wilson, John Brewin and Tariq Panja consider how and why a different set of clubs have lifted trophies across Europe. They discuss the collapse of the pay-TV market in France to suggest not all is milk and honey within the global game. Has football finance’s growth in importance turned us all into reluctant accountants? (28:58) And, as the Champions League final in Munich beckons, they share memories of 2012 and Chelsea’s achievement of ...
May 28, 2025•50 min•Ep. 20
Dispatches from Libero's Bilbao Bureau bring word of an all-English European final that was not the greatest advert for the 'Best League in the World™', so instead James Horncastle, John Brewin and Rory Smith discuss the Italian perspective on football in 2025 and how Serie A lost its status as the premier domestic competition. (30:38) We also learn how a restaurant catering to Hull's theatre crowd led Horncastle to a career covering the game in Italy. Produced by: Tom Bassam Email in at liberop...
May 23, 2025•58 min•Ep. 19
Jack Pitt-Brooke, Jonathan Wilson and Miguel Delaney have crossed the Bay of Biscay to see the teams currently 16th and 17th in the Premier League duke it out in the Basque Country with not only Europe's second biggest prize on the line, but also a place in the Champions League. Up front, Libero's intrepid trio of travellers mull over the plotlines for Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, and their respective coaches. We also find out the real reason why Jack decided to take the ferry to Bilbao...
May 20, 2025•47 min•Ep. 18
On today’s Libero, Jonathan Wilson, Jack Pitt-Brooke and Miguel Delaney start by looking forward to Saturday’s FA Cup final. Everyone knows that the final is no longer the climax of the English football season, but the big question is why? They look at the rising prominence of the league in the 1980s, the advent of the Premier League in 1992 and Manchester United’s decision to pull out in 2000. The following Saturday at Wembley is the Championship play-off final between Sunderland and Sheffield ...
May 16, 2025•53 min•Ep. 17
