Houllier's faith unshaken as doubts rise

Worthington Cup final: United lifted by Argentinian's commitment to the cause as Liverpool confront the snipers

As Liverpool supporters sink a first pre-match pint either in Cardiff or on Merseyside this afternoon, they might care to pause halfway and contemplate an age-old philosophical question: Is the glass half full or half empty? More specifically, does the possibility of a Worthington Cup and Uefa Cup double – which would add up to seven pieces of silverware in three seasons – compensate for such a lame attempt to carry the mathematical progression of finishing fourth, third and second in the Premiership to its logical conclusion?

The debate will be more easily resolved at teatime today than lunchtime. Victory over Manchester United of all clubs would taste so sweet that many Liverpudlians will be prepared to give Gérard Houllier the benefit of the doubts surrounding his term in office; inglorious defeat and by 6.06 the phone-in lines will be humming with discontent.

Houllier no longer tunes in to such programmes ("I prefer to listen to music'') and he has become immune to criticism from the small army of former Anfield employees now earning a crust as media pundits. Just as well then that the video of Thursday night's laboured 2-0 victory over Auxerre he watched until two o'clock the following morning was not the BBC's. Thick-skinned or not, the urbane Frenchman would not have slept well, if at all, after hearing his team torn to shreds during the half-time break in such comprehensive fashion.

"They're trying to be a passing side but they can't pass,'' said Alan Hansen. "There's no variation of tactics. They're so easy to play against, it's untrue.''

"The full-backs don't want the ball,'' added his equally distinguished former colleague Mark Lawrenson as film clips showed Djimi Traoré endlessly surrendering possession under no pressure.

Houllier, to be fair, had recognised that something had needed to be done and once Traoré and the equally uncomfortable El-Hadji Diouf were replaced by Vladimir Smicer and Dietmar Hamann, the standard improved from dreadful to moderately good. Before the end of the game, the manager could be seen grinning in his touchline seat; the feeling was, however, that Sir Alex Ferguson and his assistant Carlos Queiroz, sitting a few rows further back spying on behalf of today's opponents, would have been smiling too – if only at the thought of what David Beckham and Gary Neville might do down the right against any combination of Smicer, Traoré and John-Arne Riise.

The lack of impact by last summer's new intake – Salif Diao, Bruno Cheyrou and Milan Baros as well as Diouf – is a major plank in the criticism of Houllier. In repudiating it the day after the Auxerre game he was keen to stress once again how he has bought and planned for the long-term: "I know the French have a culture of revolution but I don't believe in that. I prefer to have several reforms. As a manager you have several tasks, not only to achieve results, you also have to influence the club in terms of the professional way to deal with things. We had to rebuild a team and change habits. You also need to prepare the team for the future.

"When we played at Newcastle, the average age was below 24. Dioufy had his first bad game for two months on Thursday and Djimi was nervous. They are only 22. It takes time and the majority of the fans understand that.''

As with Ferguson, there will be no public criticism of players. (The perceived dressing down of Steven Gerrard earlier this season, Houllier insists, was nothing more than a gentle exhortation not to take too much notice of publicity, whether good or bad.) Behind closed doors, however, there are frequent discussions of the type Ferguson seems unlikely to encourage.

According to the Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy, "We have a lot of meetings and try to express views rather than let it bottle up. If you want to scream and shout you can. When you're used to having a decent amount of success and it suddenly goes the opposite way it's difficult to deal with. One thing we've got at our club is experienced staff who are very good at noticing any negativity or pessimism.''

So Houllier supports his players, safe in the knowledge that the board of directors are supporting him. Without the security of that backing, he knows that the current long-term strategy would be impossible to implement: "The Board have been absolutely brilliant. The first season one of them said, 'We have patience and we believe in you and trust you.' The rebuilding started that day. You need to feel safe to do the job and it's the same with players, they need to feel safe.''

However much faith he has in tomorrow's youngsters, it would be sensible to pick the more experienced ones to take on United today in search of an invaluable victory. Without it, participation in Europe next season – so important to the development of a young team as well as for financial reasons – cannot be guaranteed, as a glance at the League table confirms. Remarkably, not even seventh place can be taken for granted by a side who briefly stood seven points clear of the pack one Saturday night in November.

Despite Houllier's positive slant on their subsequent slump – "a crisis can be a good period to reassess things... We'll be successful, don't worry'' – defeat today would have Kopites not merely drowning their sorrows but studying the bottom of the glass darkly and not liking what they see.