Episode 3653: Ødegaard Class, Liverpool’s Fix, Clever Bird, AI Not Ok
Champions League matchweek 1 is two-thirds of the way to completion… but does any of it matter?
Listeners have been in touch to identify the parrot who starred in Ken’s possibly-phantom memory, in which the bird supposedly commented on a researcher’s soft beak. The researcher in question argued her parrot showed signs of intelligence comparable to a five or six year old human being.
Intelligence is a subject that has weighed heavy on everyone’s mind this week as AI researchers post jaunty updates on the latest odds of civilisation ending in the next couple of years. As humanity races headlong towards what could be the brink of destruction, we try to put the percentage chance of extinction in the kind of football terms our limited meat brains can understand.
Lars Sivertsen shrugs off the pre-apocalyptic views and joins us to talk some Champions League. What explains Martin Ødegaard’s blistering early-season form? Is Lars as bullish on Arsenal as most of the early-season predictions seem to be? And are there signs that adoption of tactics long-favoured at Arsenal and Manchester City might be helping Liverpool turn a corner under Andoni Iraola?
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Go to PatreonKen’s efforts to soak up Troy’s Champions League debut were spoiled by Jonathan Pearce’s downbeat vibes on comms
We brave the Pearce archives to see whether there’s been a change in his tone
— Second Captains (@secondcaptains.bsky.social) 9 September 2026 at 16:01