RUSSELL MARTIN – DISASTER-CLASS
By Alistair Aird
When Russell Martin was named Head Coach of Rangers on 5 June 2025, I wrote a piece for Follow Follow which questioned whether the appointment would be magic or madness. For several weeks now, it has most definitely sat in the latter category. In the space of just 123 days and 17 matches, rather than resuscitate, revive, reinvigorate and revitalise Rangers, Martin has succeeded in creating a level of disdain and apathy among the supporters that none of his most recent predecessors did. Having told us all that the precursor for change was pain, the suffering he has subjected us to was ended when he was relieved of his duties on Sunday night. It most certainly didn’t go right, but where exactly did it all go wrong?
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RESULTS
Being brutally honest, they have been unacceptable. Rangers have won just five of the 17 matches played during Martin’s tenure. Here is the breakdown:
League
Played
7
Won
1
Drawn
5
Lost
1
Goals For
6
Goals Against
7
Scottish League Cup
Played
2
Won
2
Drawn
0
Lost
0
Goals For
6
Goals Against
2
Champions League Qualifiers
Played
6
Won
2
Drawn
1
Lost
3
Goals For
8
Goals Against
12
Europa League
Played
2
Won
0
Drawn
0
Lost
2
Goals For
1
Goals Against
3
Overall
Played
17
Won
5
Drawn
6
Lost
6
Goals For
21
Goals Against
24
Home Record
Played
9
Won
4
Drawn
2
Lost
3
Goals For
13
Goals Against
9
Away Record
Played
8
Won
1
Drawn
4
Lost
3
Goals For
8
Goals Against
15
These are damning statistics, beyond unacceptable. And even the victories have flattered to deceive to the extent that on another day, they may not have had the same outcome.
Against Panthinaikos at Ibrox, the visitors had 14 attempts on goal. Not for the last time, Jack Butland was called upon to make some vital saves. The 3-0 win over Plzen produced arguably the best display of the ill-fated ‘era’, but there were moments of concern defensively throughout. Against Alloa in the League Cup, Rangers huffed and puffed their way to a 4-2 win but looked fragile at the back. Against a side from League One. Against Hibernian, Martin Boyle passed up a couple of chances to break the deadlock and had a goal harshly ruled out for handball. And finally, it took a stoppage time goal from Max Aarons to eke out an undeserved 2-1 win against Livingston.
Martin told us on countless occasions that we had to deal with this. The precursor for change was pain. This had happened at every club he had overseen and after the pain stopped, he assured it would be so worth it. But Rangers aren’t MK Dons, Swansea City or Southampton. Inconsistency and irregularity in results and performances will be tolerated at these football clubs. Not at ours, one that has been built on a rich history of winning football matches and picking up silverware.
Martin was brought in on the premise that he would redress the balance. He would get us back on an even keel, give us an identity and create a solid foundation upon which we could challenge Celtic for domestic trophies. He failed miserably on all counts.
Having played for the club – albeit briefly – you would have thought Martin would have known that a prolonged period of pain would not simply see the supporters grit their teeth and suck it up. He played his part in two Old Firm hammerings after all. But with each week that passed with his defence putting up less resistance than butter does to a hot knife, he seemed intent of telling us that it was all good, it was getting better. The wins would come. You must wonder then what games he was watching on the iPad that sat on a tripod next to the dugout. It most certainly wasn’t the ones we were hurting our eyes viewing.
In addition to results bordering on humiliating at home – even before we had ventured to Easter Road, Parkhead, Pittodrie or Tynecastle – Martin succeeded in tarnishing the club’s reputation in Europe too. Whilst not quite standing shoulder to shoulder with the Continent’s big hitters anymore, being drawn against Rangers after Steven Gerrard had laid the foundations that made us formidable again was daunting. Not under Martin’s watch. The 3-1 defeat at home against Club Brugge was the start of a slide that has witnessed four successive European defeats. Only Jack Butland and a modicum of mercy from the Belgians prevented the score in the away leg reaching double figures. That said, the concession of six goals was chastening enough. And Genk and Sturm Graz would both have been beaten comfortably by sides led by Martin’s most recent predecessors.
Perhaps the results would have been tolerated had there been an identifiable, positive change in the performances. There wasn’t. If anything, they got worse by the week despite what Martin tried to tell us post-Falkirk. Again, he must have been viewing games through a skewed lens. Teams have threatened to score every time they attacked a defence that tried stubbornly to hold that high line Martin’s ‘philosophy’ required. The football played was turgid and torpid. No intensity, no verve, vigour or va va voom. There was little or no creativity in the forward areas and Martin managed to fly in the face of history too as the Rangers goalkeeper was being worked just as hard if not harder than the opposition one. The saving grace in that is that Jack Butland is one of the few in the current squad that can escape criticism. Without him, the results record posted above would have reached pain levels of the excruciating variety.
When you couple the malaise that had set with Martin’s arrogance, self-righteousness and stubborn resistance to change his ‘philosophy’, the whole situation was merely exacerbated.
RECRUITMENT
Once again, we file this in the ‘unacceptable’ category. And that’s being generous.
It doesn’t matter whether it was Martin or Kevin Thelwell that was responsible for identifying the players that fees totalling circa £30 million was splashed out on. The ones recruited – except for Djedi Gassama – have not and will not improve the Rangers team. The strategy should have been to create a solid, experienced core of players that had winning habits and then look to supplement that with some younger players. It didn’t take a genius to work that out. But our Head Coach clearly had other ideas when he presented his blueprint for success at one of the umpteen interviews he had for one of the most challenging roles in world football.
Put simply, Rangers are not a development club. A delusional Martin clearly thought we were, another cataclysmic error of judgement. To deem that a young, inexperienced centre forward with seven goals in 75 career games and none in the last two years was worth a fee of around £10 million and would come up to Scotland and score 20+ a season – a tally the often-lambasted Cyriel Dessers managed in the past two seasons – was folly.
As for the others? They have shown flashes here and there, but if anything, have regressed over time. Oliver Antman is a case in point. He was excellent on his debut against Plzen despite only having been in and around the squad for 48 hours. But since then as the creative spark has vanished, he has been largely peripheral and anonymous. This may be a confidence thing, but it is difficult not to think that trying to play ‘the Martin way’ has blunted his threat.
The lack of an experienced leader at the back has had an impact too. John Souttar has looked ponderous too often and Nasser Djiga doesn’t look anywhere near the £10 million-rated centre-back we thought we were getting. Emmanuel Fernandez, who cost circa £3 million, has barely featured and when he has, he hasn’t fortified a weak backline that looks as if it will get breached at will when any team attacks it.
The players must take responsibility, but there is sympathy to an extent. Too many of them are finding the jersey too heavy and that’s not an indictment on them. They simply don’t have the steely mentality you need to be a Rangers player. They may be young and hungry and be prepared to ‘run like beasts’ in training, but Rangers players are judged by how they perform when they cross that white line. In the heat of a battle, Rangers players from the past have individually and collectively been able to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in. When the going got tough, the tough got going. There are very few of the new recruits that look as if they can do that and the blame for that lies at the door of the Head Coach and the Recruitment team.
And perhaps the most damning indictment of all on the recruitment in the summer? Only one player has played minutes in all 17 of Martin’s games in charge: James Tavernier.
CONCLUSION
The decision to fire Russell Martin brought a rush of relief for all Rangers fans. He wasn’t just the worst manager in our history statistically; he was also the worst reputationally. Never in over 40 years of following Rangers have I seen someone that has graced the manager’s office unite the support in the way he did. We didn’t want him from the start, but he leaves now with even deeper feelings of ill-feeling for what he has done to the club in the past 123 days.
His disdain and disregard for tradition when it came to being in a collar and tie on matchday – it felt like his ‘too sweaty’ remark was akin to thumbing his nose at us – left a sour taste. Steven Gerrard said he wasn’t comfortable with it and preferred a tracksuit, but he would do it out of respect for the club. That’s a measure of the man and the type of man I want in charge of my club, not a Head Coach that has proven he would be out of his depth in one of the baby pools toddlers paddle and splash in at the swimming baths.
I can’t even bring myself to thank Martin for the memories. There were no good ones to be thankful for. History will show this short period to have been one of the most painful in our history. And the only thing that makes that pain ‘so worth it’, Russell is that you are now out of our club.
PS. To the recruitment team, get it right this time. Get Gerrard.