Russell Martin is a Poor Choice and Rangers Have Cheaped Out | OneFootball

To keep this short, it is not the most popular manager that Rangers have ever appointed in the shape of Russell Martin. Indeed, 95% plus are set against this particular choice, and Ibrox Noise is among them.

There is no doubt that Martin’s career in management has been underwhelming. It’s not like he’s failed at every team, it’s more that he’s managed at such a low level. His biggest success? 4th place in the championship and winning the playoff, but then horribly failing in the Premier League. Rangers need Premier League success calibre content. And we don’t just mean managers, we mean players.

At the moment we have very few of any of this, and Martin’s calibre is clearly highly under the microscope. Do we support the man? Well, it is very, very hard to say that we do.

We do not agree with this choice. There is nothing about this choice that makes sense for Rangers as a football club. For a club that needs winners, that needs proven champions, this is as far from that as it’s possible to get. We’re sure the guy is perfectly decent, but there’s certainly questions about his life choices as well. Not that they make any difference to his calibre or suitability, but it does paint a picture of a person when you know about their tastes, calibre, and background.

Nevertheless, it is football that matters here, and in football his biggest life achievement was the playoff final victory. Fair play, that is a tough one to win that and get into the Premier League. Unfortunately, the Championship itself is not that tough. It is the world’s best second league, but the pressure differences between success in the Championship and success at Ibrox are completely stratospheric.

Rangers demands wins at all times. Even a draw is enough to get the fans on your back. This mentality is nothing like Martin has ever dealt with before, and frankly, it is abundantly clear that he is a cheap option. He has been out of work since before Christmas. Nobody else wanted him, at least not enough to sign him on the dotted line.

Rangers have gone for the free agent, cheap option, and we can’t say our expectations are particularly high as a result. All we can say is that while we are deeply sceptical, dubious and borderline against him, we will nevertheless hope, against all hope, that the guy proves us wrong.