Russell Martin’s Rangers Nightmare: 123 Days Of Misery | OneFootball

Russell Martin’s tenure in charge of one of the biggest clubs in Scottish football was one to forget. Appointed on the 5th of June, he only lasted 123 days before heing sacked by the club after a draw at Falkirk. Despite his promise to deliver, the supporters never bought into his buzzword gimmicks.

From promises to dismay, fan anger and shocking performances home and abroad, this is how Russell Martin’s tenure fell apart at Scotland’s biggest failing institution.

The Beginning

It was clear that from the get go after officially being announced as the new Rangers Head Coach, Russell Martin made it clear that the goal was to win matches, to win trophies and to build a team that Rangers supporters can be proud of. Despite this though, it turned out to be anything but. We don’t need hindsight to showcase that because from the very moment he was announced as Rangers Head Coach all the way back in June, Rangers supporters were not happy with their club’s choice of Coach.

That was very clear that a large majority of Rangers supporters were not happy that Russell Martin was the man appointed. Why? In that moment it probably seemed a right mystery because he had only just walked through the door yet so many are against him without any competitive ball being kicked.

Nevertheless, there were at least a minority group of Rangers supporters, who at least initially, were happy to see the former Swansea City and Southampton man appointed.

Nonetheless, Russell Martin got to work despite the mixed reaction. Rangers had a mixed pre season with a couple of their friendlies squeezed in between big Champions League qualifying ties as they began an early bid to get back into European football’s elite. They started off with a draw against Club Brugge at Ibrox, with the friendly ending 2-2. They followed this up with a big win over Panathinaikos in Champions League Qualifying, winning the first leg 2-0 before drawing away from home in the 2nd leg just a week later. They also drew with Middlesbrough in-between these games.

Now we head into August with the Premiership campaign starting. Rangers faced a trip away to Motherwell and the early stages couldn’t have gone much better for Russell Martin with his team dominating the first 20 minutes or so, James Tavernier scored after 13 minutes from a corner. But after that positive start. It all quickly went very south with Motherwell being able to get on top of things, begin to dominate and eventually earn themselves a point thanks to a late goal from Emmanuel Longelo.

After the game, in his post match interviews, Russell Martin chose to criticize his players and the general performance of the team, stating there was a cultural issue with some lacking the feeling to fight in games that aren’t necessarily big compared to others.

At the time, it probably seemed a little bonkers to come out with such comments after your first League game in charge, but unfortunately for Russell Martin it was a pattern of things to come going forward.

What it should have been and what he achieved with it before moving to Rangers

Russell Martin successfully took a Southampton squad worth over £150m into the Premier League through a play-off promotion, which may not seem special at face value. But this showed exactly what he, as a manager, wanted from a group of players above the level they were operating at.Martin is set on a playing style that revolves around the retention of the ball. He believes that the more control you have on the game, the better you as a team will be.

He has a belief that his own footballing ‘brand’ will get him to the top of the game, perhaps in a similar fashion to how former-Burnley boss Vincent Kompany found his way to Bayern Munich. When it works in possession, it really does work. Southampton in the Championship averaged 66.0% possession and scored a total of 87 goals in 46 games.

Despite this, they were suspect on the break, and conceded a huge 63 goals, the 14th in the division, despite finishing 4th in the table overall. That appears to be the main flaw; teams can sit off and let his side have the ball, knowing they can go up the other end and score against more space and fewer numbers.

The reality and disaster

For most of Martin’s managerial career, his style has broadly worked. But from the summer of 2024, the tide had turned. He has won just two league games at two different clubs since.

At Southampton in the Premier League, Martin was naive. He believed that his team could continue to play out from the back and knock the ball about in their own third, and play past the presses of elite sides. Every team in the league had this numbered easily.

At Rangers, in some ways, it was better; they weren’t giving up the ball as much when playing out; but that’s due to the nature of the Scottish Premiership – slower than the English Premier League.

Just like when at Southampton in the second tier, they had the quality to do so; but the start to the season was so slow that it appeared the players were just not buying into it, and the fans, certainly not so.

In the Champions League, against better opposition, Rangers were picked apart by Club Brugge, losing 9-1 over two legs. Russell Martin had clearly not learnt any lessons from his tenure at Southampton, not in pragmatism or adaptability at least. Both times he was facing the sack at Southampton and Rangers, in respective stadiums, fans protested his management and held a lot of banners wanting him out immediately.

While at both clubs, issues beyond the surface lay; Martin’s refusal to change and stubbornness effectively cost him his job, much earlier than he may have been gone otherwise.

Why did Rangers fans hate Russell Martin and is he to blame for their struggles?

For most Rangers supporters, it came from a football perspective where the style to them felt quite stale and boring as well as ineffective because they were not getting results. Five wins in seventeen games says a lot and no matter where you go in football, as a manager if you aren’t winning and with a good consistency that match club and fan expectations, then really you’re already asking for trouble in terms of your future and job security.

The way the performances looked game to game with a lack of improvement was also probably something Rangers fans started to have enough of. When the same consistent errors are being made every week, costing you points and big results, and then there’s no evidence of it being fixed or rectified, questions again will be asked even if it’s early days.

The players didn’t look motivated, they showed a real lack of fight. There wasn’t any basics done particularly well either and there just seemed to be a lack of intensity and urgency in a lot of games and moments within games. That’s not all on Russell Martin.

As mentioned earlier, there are issues at Rangers with leadership at the top of the club and also the general culture that stretches all the way back into last season. But as the main guy who leads training, who speaks to the press, who is responsible for team selection.

At least as a minimum you’d think Russell Martin could have at least got them motivated for games and show some of that fight and hunger the supporters want at all times. He just couldn’t and it was another reason why the Rangers faithful had enough of him.

Then there’s the other side of it when a small section of Rangers supporters chose to get personal and direct abuse at him which regardless of circumstances is absolutely disgusting and totally unacceptable.

Yes he wasn’t winning games, yes the team weren’t performing and yes the supporters had every right to criticize whether the team was actually coached and well directed. Yet, that doesn’t then also give them any right to personally abuse him and blocking the team bus from leaving Falkirk Stadium for example.

Russell Martin does have his role to play in terms of the struggles Rangers have had so far this season and he is certainly to blame when it comes to how the team performs on a week to week basis. But also he isn’t the only one to blame because the club leadership somewhat failed to deliver top quality players that can play in Martin’s system as well as having that bit of quality to help Rangers close the gap to Celtic.

Nasser Djiga, Oliver Antman, Joe Rothwell, Max Aarons and Thelo Aasgaard, just to use them as examples, are all good players in their own ways but it’s alright just recruiting these nice technical players but if you as the recruitment team and leadership fail to recognise the equal importance of physicality as well thdn to be totally honest, you’re asking for trouble.

Even the likes of Mikey Moore and Jayden Meghoma are good additions, but it ain’t fair for two great young players to be thrown in at the deep end to try help fix a miserably failing giant that demands so much success just as the bare minimum.

The summer additions weren’t necessarily bad in terms of individual quality, but they were seemingly recruited in such naive way where the recruitment team failed to weigh up all the factors from player strengths to mentality and then things like adapting to the physicality of Scottish football and its rough nature.

Russell Martin certainly had his faults, his stubbornness and lack of willingness to adapt didn’t help, but he wasn’t the only one to blame for this Rangers mess.

Russell Martin had a Rangers tenure to forget all in all. From fan pressure and stale football to poor performances and results consistently week after week.

It’s fair to say, this was an appointment the Rangers hierarchy got horribly wrong and the Rangers fans can only really hope that the next guy who comes in is the right guy for the job. They demand winning and that means they need a winner.