Russell Martin ‘changes his mind’ on Kieran Dowell at Rangers | OneFootball

There is obviously a lot of fallout, thanks to Russell Martin’s Rangers debut in the league, where the Ibrox giants fell to yet another bad result under this manager, whereby Motherwell took a point for Park.

However, the latest comments from Martin really do sum up how clueless and contradictory the man appears to be, and how deeply he is struggling with the gravity of the job he has taken on.

Recently, he backed Kieran Dowell endlessly, as not only a captain, but as an undroppable key member of the squad. Fans obviously reacted exasperatedly to this, because fans do not see the former Norwich man the way Russell does.

However, curiously, when name-dropping players that he was happy with at Fir Park, Martin did not mention his key superstar. He mentioned Butland, he mentioned Dessers, he mentioned Cameron, and he mentioned Souttar. He also mentioned Djiga, too. Roughly speaking, he mentioned four or five players that he was overall happy with, that had delivered according to what he wants. He did not mention Dowell.

And yet, he has blindly, emphatically backed the man as a key member of the squad. It is very, very telling that he did not back up what he previously espoused by praising to the high hilt Dowell. Instead, he went in the direction of overlooking the former Norwich man completely, when previously he was backing him emphatically as an absolute undroppable and borderline invincible.

As we say, that opinion in itself seemed utterly flabbergasting and indicative of the kind of management that Martin appears to be bestowing upon us. But to then change tact, having blindly backed the man, to then borderline throwing him under a bus, really does show this manager is completely out of his depth.

A recent Ibrox Noise poll, which we will get to in a later entry, suggested 80% of Rangers fans are willing to give him a chance. Russell Martin, that is. 10% blindly back Martin, 10% absolutely are against him, and 80% are of the give him a chance and are less sure. But nevertheless, that still means that 90% of all Rangers fans are still behind Martin.

So it doesn’t really matter what Martin says. It doesn’t matter how off the rails and derailed the man becomes. He will be blindly backed by the majority of the fanbase. So he can damn well back Kieran Dowell all he likes. He can contradict himself against Dowell all he likes, and the fans will back him.

This is unfortunately part of the problem. But at the end of the day, he can’t seem to decide whether or not Dowell is a key man or worthless. Well, we can give him a bit of advice on that one in reality, but it’s not our place.

Is it?