Scouser

Jim Boardman and Jay Reid return for another episode of Scouser Tommies, this time trying to make sense of a Liverpool side that feels stuck between reputation and reality. Recorded in the wake of a 1-0 first-leg defeat away to Galatasaray, the lads reflect on another night where an early burst of promise quickly gave way to slow football, set-piece frailty and a familiar sense of collapse. There’s plenty of focus on the growing idea that “Anfield under the lights” is no longer enough on its own, with Jim and Jay questioning whether supporters can still be expected to carry the team through big European nights when the football itself is so flat. They talk about the mood in the ground, fans losing themselves to their phones, and the broader sense that the passion and enthusiasm are being drained away by a side that gives precious little back. Looking ahead, attention turns first to Spurs and then to the second leg against Galatasaray, with both matches feeling huge in different ways. As Jim and Jay discuss, Liverpool’s season is balanced on a knife edge, with top five now looking like the priority and the danger growing that even that could slip if the same mistakes keep being repeated. Ultimately, the conversation circles back to Arne Slot, his team selections, his in-game management and the increasingly strained relationship between his words and what supporters are seeing on the pitch. With accusations of stubbornness, a squad that feels underused, and what Jay calls the sense of a “messy divorce” hanging over everything, the question is no longer whether Liverpool have problems, but whether this manager is capable of solving them.

Jim Boardman and Jay Reid return for another episode of Scouser Tommies where they find themselves talking about yet another avoidable Liverpool FC defeat and the doubt that seems to be everywhere at the club right now. The show is recorded in the aftermath of the Reds failing the first part of a Wolves double-header, putting to bed any myths that Arne Slot’s side had finally turned a corner this season. There’s a look back at the West Ham win at the weekend, and Jay and Jim explain why 5-2 wasn’t the cause for celebration it could have been.

In the latest Scouser Tommies episode, Jim Boardman and Jay Reid look back at Liverpool’s lucky 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest and ahead to both the Champions League draw and a run of crucial, supposedly winnable fixtures. But with LFC 25-26, how winnable will they really be? Jim and Jay dissect the narrow (and let’s be honest, fortunate) victory, voicing concerns over a “dysfunctional” display lacking spark and creativity. Jim questions the wisdom of giving players time off when tactical work feels overdue, while Jay criticizes Arne Slot’s limited rotation and reliance on a tight core of players, suggesting Liverpool still lack a clear identity. The duo discuss Slot’s reluctance to trust youth, praising 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha for his fearless cameos that bring the directness missing from the regular starters. They also vent about “traffic warden-level” refereeing and dubious VAR calls, wondering if Slot’s patience-based tactics, which seem to consist of letting opponents tire, are a risky break from the club’s proactive traditions. Looking ahead, they ask if the FA Cup is Liverpool’s best shot at silverware, remain skeptical about Champions League progress, and stress that the coming League run against West Ham, Wolves and Spurs is a must-win stretch to secure a top-five finish. Can Liverpool finally deliver a performance as convincing as their ambitions? As always, there’s a look across the park to the docks and plenty to laugh about from the old neighbours, with Jay pointing out one thing they are definitely the masters of.

In this episode of Scouser Tommies on Anfield Index, Jim Boardman and Jay Reid reflect on a steadier spell for Liverpool after a poor run of results. A heavy loss to Manchester City was followed by a dogged 1-0 win at Sunderland and a much more fluent 3-0 victory over Brighton in the FA Cup. The upcoming fixtures look winnable, though that expectation carries less weight given how unpredictable the Reds have been this season. Recent performances offer cautious optimism. Jim notes that while Liverpool haven’t quite “turned the corner,” they’re at least “peeping around” it, which feels like progress for fans weathering a difficult campaign. Jay compares the situation to Takeshi’s Castle, where Slot’s side keep choosing doors—some leading forward, others into “the drink” or the arms of a waiting “monster.” The pair credit improved tactical balance and key individuals for this small upturn. Shifting Dominik Szoboszlai back into midfield has restored rhythm, making the team more balanced and dangerous. Cody Gakpo also draws praise for his link-up play and unselfishness, particularly in Szoboszlai’s goal against Brighton. Yet concerns remain about the manager’s decisions, including perceived favouritism and slow substitutions when defending a lead. With results improving, focus turns to the club’s wider structure and contract issues. Jim and Jay call for renewed deals for players like Szoboszlai and Ibrahima Konaté, suggesting this would lift supporters far more than another hollow PR exercise after a quiet transfer window. Looking ahead to matches against Nottingham Forest, West Ham, and Wolves, they hope Liverpool can build momentum. The FA Cup, a top-four finish, and a strong Champions League push still feel within reach. As always, there’s time to shake heads at the neighbours, and this week concludes with a plea for what the Reds should give up for Lent.

Jim Boardman and Jay Reid are back for another episode of Scouser Tommies, the show providing an honest assessment of all things Liverpool FC from right on the club’s doorstep. Yet again—as has been the case far too often this season—very few of those things are pleasant to talk about. The hope that sprung from 5-0 and 4-1 wins against Qarabag and Newcastle respectively went out the window when Arne Slot masterminded yet another Anfield defeat, this time at the hands of Manchester City. Since the turn of the year, Liverpool have won just one of their seven league games; it's nowhere near the form required to challenge for the Champions League places. In fact, if this rot doesn’t stop, there’s every chance the final game of the season could see Jordan Henderson and Brentford consigning the Reds to a year without even the Thursday night stuff to fall back on. You know things are bad when you can’t even laugh at the neighbours. With Everton standing ready to overtake Liverpool in the league, the club has plumbed depths rarely seen in recent decades. When things go wrong, there seems to be no Plan B—except for a Plan B that involves doing everything in even worse fashion than before. It hasn’t been entirely negative these past few weeks, but the only real silver linings are that there is a talented squad at the club—even if some have been over-indulged, some aren't getting a fair crack, and far too many are being run into the ground. The "positive" to take is that another manager could certainly work with these tools and get far more out of them, but how long will it take for the powers that be to blink? And no, celebrating another empty transfer window with self-congratulatory propaganda interviews, as half the squad is out injured or on the verge of it, is not a good look, whatever your PR brain told you. Jay and Jim do their best to find some light in the dark, but they aren't miracle workers. It says a lot about the state of the Reds when one of the best goals ever seen at Anfield is completely overshadowed by the chaos that followed it. Liverpool’s players looked beyond tired as that City game went on, a mirror of how the fans feel right now.

Jim Boardman and Jay Reid are back as Liverpool win 6-0 in Europe, finishing comfortably inside the top eight and earning a month off from European games. All the ingredients for an upbeat episode, you’d think, but whatever sweetness there was from Qarabag is drowned out by the sour taste of what came before - like that 3-2 collapse at Bournemouth.. Before the game the buzz around Anfield wasn’t a ‘buzz’ at all. The same question you kept overhearing, on the way in and once you were inside, was simply: “Stay or go?” The manager, of course, is the subject of that question. Everyone has their own views, and at a club like Liverpool, where we traditionally give our managers time, where we support them through thick or thin, it is never easy for anyone to answer that question with “Go”, especially if it’s one who brought only our second league title in over three decades. But, as will be seen at the next Legends game at Anfield, what you did before is what gets you invited to be involved in those Legends games, given a corner in the museum, your face on a banner, the eternal gratitude of the Kop. It’s what you do now that keeps you at the club, and if it’s not enough, for whatever reason, it’s “see you later”. For Jay and Jim this manager hit that point in that shameful quarter-season slump. The overhyped unbeaten run looked more like running on the spot than moving forward, opportunity after opportunity wasted as other clubs slipped up. That was an opportunity to banish all the doubts, instead it cemented them. Then bringing that to an end against Bournemouth shattered the illusions of many a Red who’d been trying to ignore their instincts, hoping it was all going to sort itself out. In this week’s show Jim and Jay try to explain why they feel the time is up - even after a 6-0 win. They also dig into injuries, selection calls and whether Liverpool are managing this squad responsibly in a season where legs and hamstrings are clearly being pushed to the limit. You may agree with their calling time on the manager, you may need persuading, you may be a long way away from that, but everything said on this show is with the good of the club at heart, because the club comes first. Nobody who has come to this way of thinking is doing it with anything other than sadness, for the man we are talking about and for the state of the club. And everyone is hoping above hope to be proved wrong, in style. But every league game that goes by dissolves even more of what’s left of that hope. Another question being asked around the city, and so on this show, is: “What if he wins the Champions League, does he stay then? Surely he has to stay… doesn’t he?”

Jim Boardman and Jay Reid are back to sift through the ups and downs of another strange week for the Reds. From the exasperation of a boring draw at home against Burnley to the satisfaction of a job well done in Marseille. Which version of LFC will turn up next? What we hope for and what we get might not be the same. The unbeaten run continues but what we saw at the weekend is nowhere near what any Liverpool fan wants to see, as a loud if not sizeable minority made clear at the end of the game. The frustration is understandable, and if you’ve bought your ticket you can make noise in whatever way you choose, but Jim reckons it’s a bit early to be shouting from the stands, pantomime style, it’s not what we do. As Jay points out, the vast majority of Reds fans in the ground were just as frustrated, given the conversations underway as they made their way out of the ground. Sometimes it’s better to be quiet if you’ve nothing positive to shout about. Which goes a long way to explaining why Anfield is so quiet this season. There will no doubt be some claiming that the jeers spurred Slot and his players on to victory in the Champions League, but it’s more likely to be because the opposition didn’t play the low block that most of the world now knows is Arne’s kryptonite. With the Reds’ next opponents not known for using it, is there a chance that Liverpool could register their first league win of 2026? It’s not just the results. It’s not just the annoyance at seeing everyone above Liverpool slip up and missing out on capitalising on it. It’s not just the constant use of stats to justify another awful game. It’s getting boring to watch Liverpool, with the “crab football”, as Jay puts it, showing no signs of going away. The signs of how good Liverpool can be, the injection of threat from fullbacks being able to play out wide and create, the invention of Dom at set pieces, the continued prowess of the man between the sticks, is all great to see, a boost after the boos. But then you glance at the league table and see what’s been thrown away. Also this week there’s time to have a quick look at the football equivalent of the "Rich List" and the oddities of how the different Premier League clubs’ turnover is broken down. The hosts can’t think why one club might have half the matchday revenue of their rival Premier League clubs, while bringing in far more from sponsorship and commercial. The figures also serve as a reminder of one of the major reasons it is vital to qualify for the Champions League. Money, in case you were wondering. The new Champions League format makes it very difficult not to get into the knockout phase, and a win at home in the last fixture of the league phase will mean the Reds make the last 16. At that point, if the draw is kinder than last year, it’s not out of the question that Liverpool go all the way. But if that journey is running alongside a continued inability to win games in the league it could be a bizarre situation this summer. A nice problem to have, of course, but there’s still a long way to go. Meanwhile it’s probably all been a bit confusing for the neighbours. You win a match, but you help your most hated enemy close the gap above them. You think you’re helping your old mate accelerate to glory, but they fall over too.

Jim Boardman and Jay Reid are back for another episode of Scouser Tommies and find themselves having to explain to anyone randomly finding this podcast at some date way in the future why a long unbeaten run for the Reds, the latest entry being a 4-1 win in the cup, is leaving them feeling so uninspired. Despite the scoreline against Barnsley, Jim and Jay see a team papering over cracks, relying on individual brilliance and expensive substitutes to overcome a League One opposition unable to finish the chances they found so easy to craft. Their fans, proud of themselves for their groundbreakingly original chant asking about the whereabouts of the famous atmosphere, didn’t get an answer as such, but maybe even they could work it out. As Jay points out, the predictable and boring brand of football on offer, with the endless “crab passing”, is draining all the enthusiasm out of the home fans. As for the word “unbeaten”, it still means “dropped points”, and in the bread and butter of the league the gap to the top of the table is a chasm that singular points just will not close. The frustration isn't just with the style of play, but with Arne Slot’s apparent lack of solutions. Groundhog day continues with the manager once more bemoaning teams playing five at the back, telling us how Barnsley never usually do that, but, as if it’s part of some huge conspiracy against him, decided they would for this match. For Jim and Jay it smacks of defeatism, and surely it is his part of his job to figure it out how to deal with it, through tactical shifts or better squad rotation, because constantly talking as if it’s an impossible task is making sure it stays one. There is a growing sense that Slot is "living on borrowed time," looking resigned in press conferences and failing to trust his full squad. The comparison to the vibrant, determined spirit of the Klopp era is becoming increasingly painful as the team appears to be sleepwalking through the season. With a Champions League spot the only remaining realistic priority, the fear is that the club is simply drifting. Compounding the misery is the perceived negligence in the transfer market. Liverpool entered the season light at center-back, and despite the opportunity to strengthen in January, there are no signs of new arrivals to support a fragile defense. This lack of activity, having been pushed around in the last window by Newcastle and laughed at by Palace, can’t be blamed on the head coach, but if anything underlines the lack of conviction throughout the club. That, combined with the "soft" reactions we see for moments like Martinelli’s assault of Conor Bradley in the Arsenal game, has the hosts worried that the club is losing its identity. As ever, there is a small silver lining provided by the neighbors. Everton’s recent cup exit on penalties and their own struggles for a goalscorer, having given one away thinking he was broken, and their latest off the wall interpretation of words like “accidental”, bring a bit of a smile. However, as the hosts admit, as much as we can rely on that lot from down by the river to inadvertently cheer us up, we shouldn't have to. The pressure is mounting for Slot to prove he has the "fight" required for the Liverpool job before the season, and perhaps his tenure, slips away entirely.

Jim Boardman and Jay Reid are back, with Merseyside covered in snow, but not enough to cover over the cracks at Liverpool FC. Arne Slot’s side are on an unbeaten run, but it’s not one to shout about by any means, certainly not on the Red side of the city. On this week’s show Jim and Jay look at the opportunities missed over the festive period, the points dropped and the manner in which they were dropped. But what is really getting to both Jay and Jim, is how far removed this style of football is from what we expect from a side in that Red shirt. Maybe it’s the New Year, the time when everyone gets caught up in deep thought about what they’re doing with their lives, but it’s rare that Liverpool fans ever ask themselves what they are doing going out of their way to watch this team play. Especially for those who have the club on their doorsteps. Something has got to change, and Jay and Jim discuss what that might be. Binning the manager is the current trend in football, but is that right for Liverpool? And if it is, is that the only change required? Short term, long term, and as discussed on the show, there are ways to get this club back in the right direction. The sooner work begins on that the better. The longer Liverpool tread water the more the comparisons to miserable days and miserable former employees will come up. Arsenal next, then a cup game against lower league opposition, with the same lack of hope for both games, if recent performances are repeated. It’s getting so bad that we can’t even laugh too loudly at the neighbours, even though, as is almost always the case, they are doing worse than us. There is of course still time for a chuckle, but it doesn’t quite have the same power.

In this final Scouser Tommies episode of 2025, Jim Boardman and Jay Reid look back not just at the last week of Liverpool action but at a record-breaking roller-coaster of a calendar year, with the highs of that title win starting to feel like a lifetime ago when the Reds went through a slump they looked incapable of getting out of. There’s also a look ahead, not just to the busy festive period but to the year in front of us. Two wins, with two clean sheets, is more like we’d expect from the Reds, and although it doesn’t yet make up for that terrible streak, as Jay points out, there are some shoots of optimism. The results are better, the performances have improved, but perhaps most importantly there has finally been a tactical shift from the boss that gets the best out of the squad he has at his disposal. The optimism is tempered with caution, because whilst the new tactics have been fruitful, it’s only a matter of time before these are sussed out too by opposition bosses. For Jim, it is vital that Slot reacts if and when that does happen, because during that slump Liverpool weren’t just regularly beaten, they were regularly hammered. Jay is delighted to see Milos Kerkez finally being deployed in a way that we saw him play before he arrived at Anfield, something he’s asked for all season on this show. Similarly, on the opposite flank, Joe Gomez was allowed to play like a full-back - getting an assist too - rather than as a converted centre-back. Back-to-basics defending and better positional discipline have made a difference, and as Jay points out, so has the freedom and discipline of Jones, Gravenberch, Szoboszlai and Mac Allister to rotate in midfield while ensuring defensive gaps were filled. Playing the best players in their best positions can also be a huge help to a side that’s struggling. Jim notes that Hugo Ekitiké looks like an "edge-of-the-seat" player, the kind you know will put chances away. The two braces in two successive games are just a part of what he’s offering up front. Isak might be the record signing and might need games to get fit, but, as Jay points out, it won’t have done Hugo’s confidence a lot of good to be dropped for a player who, despite the price tag, is nowhere near ready to be a first-choice Reds striker. His time will come, that much seems certain, but maybe it will come sooner if he’s partnered with the confident and in-form Frenchman. As we look ahead to a busy festive period - and to 2026 itself - Jay and Jim wonder what the new year might bring. Will the centre-backs get some cover, some competition, maybe even an eventual successor to Virgil? Arne Slot seems safe for now, and the current form is encouraging, but will he still be in his job by the start of the new season? Expectations at Anfield remain high, but there’s a lot of work to be done to live up to them, regardless of what happened last season. The festive period offers a good chance to make inroads towards meeting those demands. Four games that Liverpool should be able to get at least 10 points from, all in the league as the Champions League has its winter break. One game at a time and all that, but get these four games right and the next one, against Arsenal, may have a very different feel to it than might have been expected a couple of weeks ago. The first of those four is against Tottenham, a fixture that has had its fair share of goals over the years. The away fixture last term saw Slot’s side concede three, but unlike this season they managed to come away with all three points, bagging six of their own. The home fixture was, of course, memorable for reasons beyond that one match itself and the six goals it featured, because it was the one that finally clinched the title for the Reds. As always, there’s time to chuckle at the mentality of the old neighbours, who just can’t break out of type.