One At A Time Please: Scouser Tommies

The Anfield Index Podcast

In this week’s Scouser Tommies, there’s plenty for Jim Boardman and Jay Reid to talk about, with the Reds continuing their quest for silverware and loads going on behind the scenes to try and ensure there are more of these quests in the years to come.

Since the last episode the Reds have fallen from the top of the Premier League table, but only on goal difference, a minor detail that seems to be getting forgotten in all the hype. There’s a big deficit of goals to make up if that is how the title ends up being decided, but as Klopp’s side showed in the Europa League, they certainly know where the goal is.

Liverpool dropped a position because the game against Manchester City ended all square of course, and, although three points would have been nicer, as Jay and Jim discuss, it feels like City will feel the two dropped points more than the Reds. Given the injuries Liverpool have to contend with, and the unsurprisingly lenient refereeing the visitors got to benefit from, a point was a decent enough outcome. Even so, it was hard not to wonder what might have been, had the PGMOL guidelines on fouls and cards not been rewritten yet again without our knowledge.

Maybe the best way to deal with playing against an extra man so often is to go out and win before they can have any influence on the game, exactly what another hybrid LFC team did against Sparta Prague in the Europa League. The line-up was perhaps stronger than many expected, given Liverpool’s 5-1 lead from the first leg, but as Jay points out, sports science may be playing a part in who gets picked and who doesn’t, a complete rest isn’t always what a player needs when working back to full fitness. The 11-2 aggregate win meant the post-match interviews were bound to include talk of quadruples, but Jim wonders if TNT Sport had to try so hard to push 20-year-old Conor Bradley into admitting that one would be quite nice.

As Conor pointed out, Liverpool need to take one game at a time and see where that leads us, and the next game is in another competition. With one domestic trophy already in the bag, and with it being the only chance the opposition have got of winning anything this season, an already massive game seems to take on even more significance. The FA Cup quarter-final tie against Manchester United will also be a chance for a larger and no doubt louder traveling Kop than usual to make itself heard inside that dilapidated (their words) theatre of dreams (also their words!). And maybe it’s not us the authorities over there are really worried about.

It was also the week where Michael Edwards was confirmed as taking on a new role as part of the overall FSG group, and he’s got plenty to do, not only overseeing a new director of football for the club but looking at FSG buying a sister club. It’s a concept not to everyone’s liking, but as Jay and Jim discuss, it has its plusses.

This week:

• LFC 1-1 v Man City

• Another refereeing masterclass

• More sarcasm

• LFC 6-1 v Sparta

• Maybe the goal difference in the league doesn’t have to be a worry

• Europa League draw

• Could have been a lot worse

• One game at a time – but look at that possible final

• A trip down the Lancs

• Not the most welcoming city – to anyone

• They had an M.Edwards as director – what’s else was he famous for?

• International break ahead

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