Video: Did these barbed comments on Sheffield United fans end it for Nigel Adkins?

The team had just taken part in an inglorious 'lap of appreciation' in front of a handful of supporters, some of whom had stayed behind just to jeer the players.

During the match, boos rang out with, 'You're getting sacked in the morning' bellowing from the Kop and the biggest cheer from the home support arrived when it was announced that Dean Hammond had been given the hook at half time.

Following that, when speaking to local media and asked about the atmosphere at Bramall Lane that day, after a match in which the team had produced yet another lacklustre display in losing to Scunthorpe, Adkins appeared to criticise the support.

"I've come with, today's opposition for example, Scunthorpe United, as a visiting manager and you know what the atmosphere is going to be like here at Sheffield United. Always has been, probably always will be...that's just the nature of it," he said.

"You've just got to get on with it. There's a lot of frustration for us, it's five or six years now that we've been in League One. We've got to get out of it as soon as we can and until we do there's going to be a lot of people unhappy, none more so than me."

Some supporters vented their fury at the barbed comments.

Among them, @pauljhnst wrote on twitter: "Adkins interview was almost encouraging to be sacked with some of the remarks made reference to the fans." And @Luke_Shepherd02 added: "Why wasn't Adkins fuming in his interview? He blamed the fans more than the players, he has no passion and he's got to go now".

The comments appeared to tip the scales against Adkins for some and perhaps rightly so. In a season which promised much and produced nothing, Bramall Lane had an average of about 20,000 fans turning up every other week. This is five years into a stay in League One. That level of loyalty arguably gives supporters the right to show how they feel.

Some say there's a sense of entitlement at S2. In this case, they are more than entitled to feel aggreived at what they have been watching on the pitch.

Adkins' viewpoint in the aftermath, not least coming from someone normally so positive, must surely have changed the minds of some of the decision-makers.

Over the course of the season Adkins needed to be critical and he wasn't. It wasn't exactly scathing, but on the final day that criticism was aimed in the wrong direction...and it could well have cost him his job.