It’s post-derby week in Liverpool and Jim Boardman and Jay Reid are back with big smiles for this week’s episode of Scouser Tommies. Any victory is cause for celebration, but there’s a specific kind of joy that comes from a derby win, especially when it arrives with the sort of comedy unique to the residents of the Rhyl Dickinson.
As our hosts discuss, it was a Merseyside Derby with all the usual nerves in the build-up, all the usual nonsense from the blue quarter of the city, and, with a disallowed goal, a penalty shout spurious even by their usual standards and a 100th-minute winner, all the ingredients for another long spell of fume from the fans of “the most irrelevant club”.
The celebrations for the first ever derby goal at their new ground turned out to be celebrations for the first one chalked off by VAR. They celebrated it like it had ended a three-decade wait for a trophy, but no sooner had they started adding it to their ever-growing “it’s just not fair” dossier than Cody Gakpo had set Mo Salah up for the real first ever derby goal at their new ground.
The laughs had started with their comedy air-raid siren and continued with their Beatles-stealing tifo, but the punchline came at the end. They did get a goal back, but just as they were readying themselves for a famous 1-1 draw, up popped Virgil van Dijk with that late, late winner. “Where did the ref find all that time?” they asked, apparently forgetting the two stretcher delays.
Jay and Jim also find time to get into the football itself, with praise for the way Liverpool kept their heads in a game that can so often drag everyone into chaos, for tactics that worked and players who carried them out, and for the big moments from Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk that settled it. After the season Liverpool have had, it was a welcome break from so much grim football. There was even praise for the ref.
There’s also discussion of some of Arne Slot’s recent comments on his new theme of transition and what they might mean for his future. As the hosts point out, there needs to be clarity on what comes next if the next phase is going to be built properly, whoever ends up doing the building.
Also this week, there’s a look at Spirit of Shankly’s planned yellow-card protest over ticket prices, why this matters far beyond one ground or one club, and why it’s vital that the message makes its way across the Atlantic and into the eyes and ears of owners who haven’t been seen on Merseyside in a while.
