The Premier League has launched an official podcast, which will be released every Thursday evening with a preview of the upcoming weekend’s fixtures as well as analysis and trivia questions.

The first episode was released last week to very little fanfare featuring Ian Payne as host and Nigel Winterburn as co-host. The podcast opens with the familiar sounds of My Saturday Self, the song that is played before each Premier League game and is followed by a breakdown and predictions of each Premier League game for the forthcoming weekend. The debut show, at 30 minutes, also features a brief interview with Steve Bruce about trivial things such as his first car and first record, as well as a few fantasy football tips and analysis by Winterburn.

The podcast is professionally produced and will be of interest to most followers of the Premier League. However, let’s hope that Winterburn won’t be the permanent co-host. That’s because the analysis he gives in the debut episode is so basic that even someone new to watching Premier League football will find it irrelevant and obvious.

The concept of the podcast is perfect. It gets the listener excited about the coming weekend of Premier League fixtures and drops in a couple of plugs for the Premier League’s prediction and fantasy games. The only question for the Premier League is what took so long? Podcasts became popular five to six years ago. This is long overdue.

The Official Podcast of the Barclay’s Premier League is available via iTunes and the Premier League website.

In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to the EPL Talk Podcast. In the past few weeks, we’ve interviewed legends of the game such as Steve McManaman, Efan Ekoku, Martin Chivers and Robbie Earle as well as experts such as Declan Hill, Simon Kuper, Misha Sher, Matt Dickinson and many others. Why pay $40 a year to rival podcasts when you can subscribe to the EPL Talk Podcast for FREE featuring interviews with the biggest names in football?