Over seven hours of live soccer, Trevor Welch's Premier League live returns this Saturday

Premier League Live returns this Saturday, August 22, with Cork’s Trevor Welch hosting the show, now in its fifth season for talkSPORT Ireland.

The show runs on Saturday from 12pm to 7.30pm, and is built around three full live commentary matches.

The new Premier League season kicks off this evening as reigning champions Arsenal host newly-promoted Coventry City, but the show commences with the first Saturday game as Hull City host Manchester United at 12.30pm. Then, Welch and the crew will move to the 3pm game between Nottingham Forest and Leeds United, before concluding with Brentford versus Tottenham Hotspur, which kicks off at 5.30pm.

Listeners in Cork can tune in through 96fm.ie or c103.ie, or by the simplest route of downloading the TalkSPORT app. The show will also be carried by Live 95 in Limerick, FM104 and Q102 in Dublin, as well as LMFM in Louth.

The Premier League Live show has grown its audience year on year, with Welch anchoring the show from Broadcasting House, home of Cork’s 96FM. This weekend they’ll be joined by special guest Mark Lawrenson, the former Republic of Ireland Liverpool, Brighton and Preston North End defender. Lawrenson won five league titles during his time at Liverpool.

“Mark [Lawrenson] is in Cork,” Trevor Welch begins. “I worked with Mark for years, he would have been my main co-commentator with TV3 going back to 2000, so going back 26 years. I've worked with Mark for about 14 years running.” 

Lawrenson is not the only notable name to regularly appear on the show, Former Chelsea defender Paddy Mulligan often contributes, while ex-Drogheda United striker Declan ‘Fabio’ O’Brien previews the weekend’s matches each week.

The guest list draws on former Irish internationals almost every week, with the likes of David Connolly, Tony Cascarino, Andy Townsend and Denis Irwin featuring across the season, alongside English contributors such as Dave Kitson.

At around 5pm they’re joined by the live guest on the show, the TalkSPORT influence from the UK ensuring big names – Alan Brazil and Cascarino among them – and they preview the 5.30pm fixture.

“Obviously [Mark] Lawrenson is a big call for us on Saturday,” says Trevor. “So I've done a piece with him on, is he convinced that Arsenal could retain the title?

He's not convinced that Arsenal will do it. He expects a number of Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United to challenge. So he's coming on, he talks all things Premier League.

And while the show surrounds the Premier League action across the weekend, Welch makes a point of chasing every Irish thread throughout the English game.

“It's just good from an Irish perspective this week,” Welch explains. “Like we’ve Brentford on, and Donal O'Connor just went to Brentford. And the Irish link is there obviously with [Damien] Duff and Keith Andrews, so there's a big Irish interest.

“And we'll be mentioning the fact that Donal O'Connor has gone from Cork City to Brentford in that match. We try to get in every Irish angle we can as well.

“I’d get Denis Irwin on the odd time, obviously with Caoimhín [Kelleher] involved, with Chidozie [Ogbene], [there’s] the Cork Irish interest, we go heavy on that as well. Even down to the Championship and First Division, we could cover the Cork interest from week to week.

“We're into our fifth season now, so it's gaining momentum,” he says. “It's online. It's not on your mainstream FM now. Online is getting stronger and stronger as well, it’s just downloading the app.” 

While the commentary for the games is provided by TalkSPORT’s UK team – known voices Tom Rennie and John Anderson among the main commentators – the show is very much a Cork production. Welch, who has been on radio since he was 18, presents, with Rob Allen and Bailey Olliffe from 96FM producing locally. The show is sponsored by Frank Keane BMW and Screwfix.