The Athletic.

Hi there, this is the Athletic Football Podcast weekend preview,

and it is the return of the Premier League.

Music Well, with me for this week's episode, I'm delighted to say Nick Miller is back. How are you, Nick?

Yeah, a bit tired, but all right, all right. Tiredness, because of... Overworking, pressures of modern life, the weight of existence. An expectation? I guess so, yeah. I don't know who's expecting things of me, but I'm feeling the weight of it, nonetheless. But you always deliver, and it's great to have you on the show. John McKenzie is also here. John, how are you? I'm doing very well, thank you. Yes, how are you? I'm very good. Before we started recording, you told me a very, very interesting stat, and I wanted to have it on record about scoring goals and how one should do that. Tell me. Yeah, since the 21-22 season, this is a stat from a guy called Dominic Haynes, who is a lecturer at UCFB. Knows his stuff. Knows his stuff. He's been individually gathering shot data in the last three, four seasons. And in that time, 60% of goals have been scored with the first touch, so you're much more likely to score with a first touch than you are of any other subsequent touch. Love that. I like it. Jacob Whitehead is back as well. How are you? I'm very good. I'm very good. Although I'm not feeling sartorily enough dressed, looking at you and a smart shirt and I'm in tracky bottoms in the studio. I mean, it's not really good enough for me. It's the second time today, someone said, you know, I know, but I'm getting the feeling that people are remarking on it because it's the exception rather than the rule. I probably should just be a bit more relaxed. Well, I'd say you're at one end of a scale and I'm at the other end. So maybe both of us just

need to kind of give in to peer pressure and go for a jeans and a hoodie. For anyone that's

listening to this, you're listening. You can't see it. But you can actually see what we are wearing

if you're watching on YouTube, which is great if you want to see what we're wearing. This week,

the winter break means that it is a halved match week.

So we have five games this weekend,

and that makes a fixture formation very, very simple indeed.

Like a five-a-side team, it is one, two, two from Friday to Sunday.

Would you like to hear what the fixtures are?

Yes, please.

Here they are.

On Friday evening,

what a curtain-raiser to the weekend. It is the basement battle, Burnley against Luton,

on Saturday, lunchtime,

probably the most well-heeled derby of them all.

Chelsea against Fulham.

Then on Saturday evening, it is the fixture, which is now known as Oil Classico.

It is Newcastle against Manchester City.

...