The return of Nico Raskin has made no difference to Rangers | OneFootball

If one thing has become abundantly clear, there is no one player at Ibrox who makes any difference to Rangers’ benefit or Rangers’ downfall.

Rangers fans clung onto Nico Raskin as if he was God’s gift to football, purely because he had a falling out with Russell Martin. His return has seen absolutely no improvement whatsoever, unless we count a fluke victory against Livingston.

The Belgian international may be a decent player, but he has no influence on Rangers, as Ibrox Noise has already researched. We discovered that Rangers, in fact, historically have more success without Raskin in the team than with him, in terms of results since he signed. This is pretty definitive proof that he makes no difference to Rangers’ outcomes whatsoever.

On the other hand, Joe Rothwell, at the opposite end of the scale, is similar. He is completely useless and has never been rated, except in the early stages by the usual hipsters who would back any old Tom, Dick or Sally in a Rangers shirt. Eventually, after a month or so, it became apparent that one of the many players Ibrox Noise did not want at Rangers was indeed as poor as predicted. His inclusion or exclusion from the team has made no difference to Rangers’ fortunes.

So, having good players in — theoretically good anyway — or bad players in or out, makes no difference. None of the players make any difference to this team whatsoever. Admittedly, most of them were signed from Poundland, but nevertheless, even the better players are not influencing a change.

That shows just how poor Russell Martin is as a manager, something we already knew at Ibrox Noise. We protested against his arrival, we were ignored, and now we find ourselves in a position where Rangers’ toxicity — fan toxicity, club toxicity, board toxicity — all of it is diabolical. It is a shambles, an absolute mess of a club right now, and it is in the image, unfortunately, of Russell Martin, who cannot be shifted.

But one thing we do now know for sure — no players make any difference to anything that we are seeing. Raskin’s absence did not make us worse, and his presence is not making us better. We are scandalously poor, and that is not going to change.