During last night's West Ham commentary on talkSPORT 2, Alex Crook mentioned that talkSPORT will be doing commentary on Tuesday's second leg of the Hapoel Beer Sheva v Celtic Champions League Play-Off tie. I'm pretty sure he mentioned that the game would be on talkSPORT (as opposed to TS2), although it isn't in the schedule yet.
This is a really welcome development, especially when you consider that European games involving Scottish clubs are rarely on UK-wide national radio given how Radio 5 Live's commentaries tend to involve Premier League teams. BBC Radio Scotland's European game commentaries are not always available online either, so for a lot of listeners in England and Wales they won't be able to hear commentary on the Scottish clubs in Europe that often. Indeed it's been a while since talkSPORT last did a commentary on Celtic in Europe, although I remember them being in Lisbon for their game at Benfica during the season when the Bhoys beat Barcelona in the group stage.
With Tuesday also being a full programme of EFL Cup matches, I wonder if talkSPORT 2 might broadcast an Around the Grounds show as they did this week when the main station was carrying commentary on the first leg of Manchester City's Champions League Play-Off. I think doing this was another welcome development and I'd like it to become a regular thing on Champions League Tuesdays, when in previous seasons a busy domestic programme would be neglected a little bit by talkSPORT due to their live commentary commitments.
On Wednesday, talkSPORT will be broadcasting EFL Cup second round commentary on Fulham v Middlesbrough with Mark Saggers hosting from Craven Cottage. Interesting to see them doing a second round commentary after they covered Luton Town v Aston Villa live in the first round. I say that as since they regained League Cup rights in excess of just the final, talkSPORT have always done nine commentaries from the competition per season - the final, both legs of both semi-finals, one quarter-final, one fourth round tie, one match from the third round plus one game from either the first or second round. Their live commentaries have typically started in the second round, although last season they covered Leeds United's first round tie on a Thursday before not doing a second round commentary (instead deciding to do commentary the away leg of Manchester United's Champions League Play-Off on the second round Wednesday if I remember rightly). So this season we should see the total number of talkSPORT's League Cup commentaries either bumped up to ten live games or they'll not do a commentary in a later round.
Interesting to see that Radio 5 Live have already announced next Saturday's 3pm commentary - good to see the sensible ten-day rule for these games is still in effect. Looking at next Saturday's fixture list, I'd guess talkSPORT 2 will pick Chelsea v Burnley, although increasingly I find that during 95% of the season there's very little to choose from when it comes to the relative attraction of the five or six games scheduled each week in this timeslot.
