I'm not sure if it's fuelled by that calamitous run of 7 defeats and 4 draws softening everybody up so much that they're now losing their nerve at the slightest blip or whether it is the realisation that in league terms we're currently a fair way off the class of Arsenal and United and possibly Chelsea and Newcastle too.
Whatever, to listen to the Radio Merseyside phone-ins and some of the conversations in the ground and in the pubs it sure seems to me that it's some of the locals and not GH who have lost the plot.
John Keith who hosts the local phone-in was distinctly biased against GH's regime tonight. Whereas in the past he might have sat on the fence tonight he was using statistics to damn GH's reign - the fact that GH has not fielded the same side consecutively in 90 odd league games, the fact that we've come back from behind only once in 36 games, the fact that Boro had not previously scored away since September.
There were about ten Reds fans on the show and only one voiced any support for GH. All the rest were calling for an end to his reign. Many spoke in no uncertain terms about GH losing the plot.
Frankly I was disgusted and outraged. I phoned up and got through but they did not phone me back possibly as I'd mistakenly spoken out against the shite John Keith was voicing and championing.
What was most aggravating was the apparent refusal to acknowledge how well the team on the whole played today. Several hours earlier I'd witnessed Liverpool playing a competant if over defensive Boro side virtually off the park - not that dissimilar to Wednesday night against Palace - yet once more being denied a positive result by a combination of bad luck, an admitted lack of composure and confidence in front of goal and good robust defending.
It seems that a mindset has become established and there are many who have already decided that the Houllier reign is over. No matter that less than two years ago he became the only manager in major power European football ever to win 3 major cup competitions or that he clinched a runners up spot last term. No matter that his team is still clearly - to anybody who thinks just a little bit about it - a team in the throes of a transition.
It seems ironically that the trophies GH won, the success in finishing second last year and the early season 7 point lead [when let's be honest we never once played anywhere near as well as we did today despite winning most of those early games] - it seems all this is now counting against GH.
He appears - ridiculously - to have made a rod for his own back by giving us some of that success and glory we were all craving. A combination of a sterling defence and Michael Owen on blob with occasional cameos from Robbie Fowler enabled us to over-achieve far too prematurely in our overall development and now this has bizarrely come to haunt him.
Expectations were raised back then particularly amongst those who frankly don't seem to have a fucking clue about the long term perspective and development. Now that those expectations are currently being dashed by the spell of relative mediocrity that we are suffering those quick-fix merchants simply cannot deal with it. So called lifelong Reds who were happy to celebrate their rocks off little more than 18 months ago in Cardiff and Dortmund are viciously lashing out at the man responsible for those celebrations.
You mention those two French lads in the pub debates and the stock answer seems to be - 'oh you mean two more like Cheyrou!'. You argue that this is still a relatively young Reds team and you are met with - 'according to Houllier they've been young for the past four years'. You say that maybe we're now seeing a bit more football on the deck and you're met with jibes of 'oh you mean by Hooflier's Wimbledon?'
I'll be honest with you all. If the results - because on today's evidence it's clearly not enough for the team to turn in a decent performance without the right result to these short-sighted morons - don't turn around quickly and consistently then I can see this groundswell really gathering pace here in Liverpool.
GH's supporters are becoming thinner and thinner on the ground.
That 'blessing in disguise' slip up has poured more fuel onto the flames to the extent that mates of mine are simply calling GH a laughing stock. No matter that the poor fellow is attempting to converse in a foreign tongue with the legion of misinterpretations that can carry. No, he is expected to understand the full implications and the nuances of every single fuckin English colloquialism. To hell with what the poor fellow really meant. Let's damn him and condemn him with his own words.
'At least his shit is coming out of the right orifice with this enteritis bug' are the insinuations of a post by a moderator on the TTWAR forum.
It may be that this manager of ours has indeed spoken some verbal diahorrea in recent times and maybe in the more distant past too. However, it is nothing to the utter drivel and garbage we are being forced to endure from fellow so-called Liverpudlians.
It used to be that - in broad terms at least - a Liverpudlian once stood for loyalty and solidarity, not just in footy terms but in life generally. What I've been witnessing here recently on an ever spiralling scale is a million miles from that sort of 'all in it together' spirit.
This is a game of opinions I know. Results and performances have been dire at times I know too. However, the short-term desperation of some here on Merseyside is frankly becoming an embarrassment and, believe me, despite these impassioned words I am by no means a Houllier fanatic. I am, however, a firm believer in fair play and giving people a fair crack of the whip. I certainly have no time for those nebulously decreeing that he has 'taken the club as far as he can'.
Bollocks - how the fuck could they possibly know that? Did they predict the cup treble too? Oh sorry I forgot - that was just luck. Sorry.
If Bill Shankly could listen for just one minute to some of the spiteful, dismissive, divisive sniping that is currently becoming vogue amongst many of his adopted so-called Red citizens he would I'm sure be thoroughly ashamed and disillusioned. Certainly he would not recognize it as the Scouse he grew to love.
I hope Gerard Houllier is being shielded from this shite. Because if not I would scarcely blame him if he decided in perfect English to 'fuck this for a game of soldiers'. Quite candidly it would be nothing more than some of these masquarading Reds deserved if he was to leave us in the lurch.