A New Season, New Channels, And One Centre Back I Cannot Wait To Watch

We go again... here's what's happening at Anfield Index and EPL Index

It has been a poor summer for transfers.

There is no point dressing it up. Liverpool have not done the business most of us expected, certainly not to the extent required after losing important players and heading into a new season with obvious gaps still sitting there in the squad.

There is time yet. There is also still hope those gaps will be filled.

Whatever happens from here, we will be across it in the way we always are, written coverage on the website, reaction and debate across social media, audio podcasts, live shows and increasingly, YouTube.

For now though, with Newcastle United waiting on Sunday, I find myself thinking about one of the players Liverpool did bring in.

Jeremy Jacquet has fascinated me for a while.

I have spent a fair amount of time going back through his early years, watching whatever footage I could find from Rennes, Clermont and the French youth sides, trying to understand why Liverpool were prepared to commit £60m to him at such a young age.

The clues were always there.

There is something wonderfully uncomplicated about the way he defends. He reads danger early, covers ground frighteningly quickly and seems comfortable when asked to defend enormous spaces.

Put the ball in the air and he attacks it. Run at him and those long legs eat up the ground. Give him possession and he has the composure to play rather than simply clear his lines.

Those who watched him develop have spoken about his intelligence, maturity and ability to understand situations remarkably quickly. That part really interests me.

Physical gifts can carry a defender a long way. Judgement can carry him much further.

I was already excited about Jacquet before Sunday.

After 45 minutes against Como, that excitement feels rather better founded.

Nobody should pretend a pre season half guarantees anything. There will be mistakes. There will be difficult afternoons. There will be lessons delivered by Premier League forwards who have made careers out of punishing hesitation.

Still, you could see the outline of the player Liverpool believe they have bought.

Strong, quick, aggressive, calm with the ball, decisive without it.

Even the manner in which he recovered possession and immediately looked to play felt important. It was not frantic defending. It was controlled defending.

Now comes the really intriguing part, watching him learn alongside Virgil van Dijk.

Liverpool may have bought their centre back for the future.

Sunday suggested the future could arrive rather sooner than expected.

EPL Index Is Back On YouTube

Away from the transfer noise and preparations for Newcastle, this has also been a big week behind the scenes for us.

After bringing Anfield Index properly to YouTube around 18 months ago, we felt the start of a new Premier League season was the right time to do the same with EPL Index.

EPL Index has always been our home for wider football coverage and we want the YouTube channel to become an extension of that.

Nothing is changing for listeners who prefer audio.

All of our EPL Index shows will continue to be available as audio podcasts, including Dave Hendrick’s Two Footed Podcast. The move into YouTube is about adding another way to watch, listen and get involved.

The initial schedule is deliberately focused rather than enormous, but there should still be plenty to get stuck into.

Tadiwa Chankira will bring A Tad Predictable twice per week.

Nina Kauser and Ben Pescod will host Final Whistle every Sunday.

Mo Chatra will take Money Talks beyond Liverpool and into the wider Premier League financial landscape.

Dave Davis will host an expanded version of Newsround, covering football far beyond Merseyside.

Then we have Lola and Scarlet Katz Roberts, the wonderfully feisty twins behind Goal Difference, bringing their own take on the Premier League.

We are also building some formats specifically for YouTube.

Fan Focus will be one of those, a live, interactive panel show where the audience becomes part of the conversation. We are aiming to have that running at least two nights per week.

The idea is simple. More football, more voices, more debate, more interaction.

Anfield Extra Gives Us Somewhere For Everything Else

Last week we also launched Anfield Extra on YouTube.

As Anfield Index has grown on the platform, we have increasingly found ourselves with more video content than we can sensibly fit onto the main channel.

Anfield Index Extra gives that content a proper home.

Extra podcast cuts, additional interviews, analysis and videos that might otherwise disappear because of the sheer volume of material being produced can now live there without overwhelming the main Anfield Index feed.

If you enjoy what we produce, please subscribe to both EPL Index and Anfield Extra.

For a small independent fan media company, those subscriptions genuinely make a difference.

Our Biggest Technology Project Yet

There is another major project taking place behind the scenes.

Work is well underway on the completely rebuilt Anfield Index website and our new Android and Apple apps.

This is comfortably the biggest technology revamp our small independent fan media company has ever undertaken.

It is a huge project, touching virtually every part of the Anfield Index experience, and we will be sharing much more about it over the coming weeks.

I cannot wait for people to start using some of the new features.

One of the additions I am particularly excited about concerns video.

AI:Pro subscribers will be able to access our video content directly through the website and apps with zero ads.

No YouTube adverts interrupting the conversation, no cuts to accommodate advertising, just the content.

AI:Pro remains available from only £4.99 per month, and it remains the best way to directly support everything we are trying to build while getting access to all of our content without cuts or ads.

We are still independent.

We aren’t an extension of LFC’s club media arm.

We are still fan media.

We are also trying to build something considerably bigger and better than what we had before.

There is plenty more to come.

As ever, we would love to hear your thoughts, whether that is about the new channels, the new technology, the shows you want to see or what you think we should be doing differently.

And after months dominated by transfers, rumours, finances and endless speculation, I cannot wait to get back to talking about what actually happens on the pitch.

Newcastle on Sunday.

Jacquet potentially alongside Van Dijk.

A new season.

Finally, some football.