We Need To Be Wrong About Russell Martin At Rangers | OneFootball

A lot of Rangers fans have accused Ibrox Noise of being incessantly negative ever since Russell Martin was appointed Rangers manager. It would be hard for us to deny this or suggest that it is untrue. In fact, it is completely true.

As regulars to the site who know the timbre of our content and the honesty we put out will already understand, we have never hidden our feelings. The fact is, Russell Martin is not only the wrong character to be Rangers manager in terms of his personal choices—he is simply not up to the job of managing a club the size of Rangers either.

His CV gives no evidence that he is the right man. What he has said in the press does not fill us with any interest, never mind confidence. And his endorsement of James Tavernier as captain hardly helps either.

We know fine well that the angry minority—the “give him time FFS,” “he’s just in the door FFS,” or “the window’s just opened FFS” crowd—will be out in force, telling us off for being so negative, for literally not giving the man a chance. And it’s true. We are not.

We are one of the few Rangers organisations, supporter sites, fan groups—whatever you want to call it—that is being openly honest about how we feel about this appointment. About how we feel about the ownership. None of it feels like the way Rangers should.

Anyone saying otherwise is expecting a different Rangers to the one Ibrox Noise does. We expect a winning Rangers. A Rangers with decent players. A well-organised Rangers. A champion Rangers. We do not see that under Martin.

Yes, fans again will point to one friendly loss and say it was only pre-season, or it was only a friendly, etc. But as we’ve mentioned recently, the only time that pre-season saw consistent wins in recent years was during 55. And that surely highlights the importance of confidence in pre-season and of getting results.

Under Martin, we don’t expect that. In truth, we don’t expect much of anything. And that is the harsh reality.

Yes, we are negative. Are we behind Martin? No. We expect him to fail miserably. We want to be wrong, but we have zero hope that we will be. His CV does not point to a man capable of taking a juggernaut like Rangers, turning us around and making us champions. There is no evidence or indication whatsoever that this appointment is even close to correct.

That all said, as we have attested before—we want to be wrong. We want this guy to win. Because winning is what matters at Rangers.

We already know that a fair number of fans are writing off the season in a kind of justifying way. A way that suggests, oh, it’ll take a season or two to get his ideas across. But you don’t get a season or two at Rangers. You don’t get that kind of time. You never did.

So we, as Ibrox Noise, will simply observe and hope that we are wrong. That we are wrong about this appointment, about this regime, and that we have every reason in a few months to issue a huge apology to everybody who backed him and wanted him given time.

We would love nothing more than to be completely wrong.