IBROX — At half-time at Ibrox on Sunday, two banners were held up in the Copland Stand.
Supporters had just watched Celtic fail to have a first-half shot in a league match for the first time in more than seven years, but if you thought that was enough to settle the anger, you haven’t been listening.
“Martin and co must go – we deserve better,” one banner read. “Enough is enough,” said the other.
On both, the faces of manager Russell Martin and CEO Patrick Stewart were crossed out in red.
That after arguably Rangers’ best half of football of the season, and certainly their most resilient.
By full-time, Martin was booed off the pitch, albeit by far fewer that he may have feared at midday.
— Rangers Football Club (@RangersFC) August 31, 2025
Russell Martin spoke to RangersTV after today’s match against Celtic. pic.twitter.com/tSz90wzbgI
Any credit for blunting Celtic was evaporated by Celtic’s capability of blunting themselves. The winless run makes this Rangers’ worst start to a league season in 42 years.
Inside Ibrox, the resentment hung heavy in the air and wrapped around you like a cloak.
Every time a player failed to take on his opponent, played an overly safe pass, lost control or picked the wrong option, it felt not like the commonplace action of a derby but a further nail in the coffin of an entire regime.
Martin avoided the worst of the toxicity by ostensibly relaxing his dogmatism to match the occasion.
Rangers went direct and there was finally some bite in central midfield. Even that comes laced with damnation: if you’re not going to play to your preferred style, what’s the point in having you?
If that sounds like Martin can’t win, welcome to the present. The Old Firm game has typically shaped opinions on managers, for better or worse.
Here, somehow, the opposite: even victory would have only felt like a postponement of inevitability. They did not come here to decide upon their judgement – they came to deliver it.
This isn’t normal
Everything is currently broken at Ibrox. The only connected strand is between virtually every supporter united on a single issue.
When Rangers podcast Heart and Hand conducted a poll when Martin joined, 95 per cent of respondents disagreed with his appointment. Most of the exceptions have since shifted their view.
This is not a fanbase that changes its mind easily or quickly. David Edgar, of Heart and Hand, says that Mark Hateley was probably the last individual to do so – he’s not really joking and that was 1991.
They are opinionated, they care and they have seen more than any of the transients: players, managers, owners.
You can see their point. Martin arrived with a reputation for playing a certain style of football that has never really worked (or been appreciated) at Rangers. He got that reputation at clubs far smaller in size than Rangers, even if Southampton may have got higher revenues before their relegation.
It started badly in the first friendly and, at least until Sunday’s compromise, basically got steadily worse since.
In midweek, they were beaten 6-0 by Club Brugge after a performance with such a lack of fight and cohesion that the margin of defeat could feasibly have been doubled. This isn’t normal.
These supporters have seen managers drown before, too many recently. After 16 permanent managers in their history until November 2021, when Steven Gerrard was sacked, Rangers have appointed four since and each of Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Michael Beale and Philippe Clement had their patent faults.
But none of them tried to change everything from day one so brazenly and were so unsuccessful in performing the transformation.
That strategy was made more difficult by the summer transfer model. Ask any Rangers supporter what their team of the last two years has lacked and immediately take a couple of steps back while they shout the word “LEADERS” at you at high volume.
Rather than fix that critical situation, Rangers signed 10 players aged between 17 and 25, with the bulk of those coming from Premier League academies or the Championship.
They needed a spine and, even accounting for a trading model of buy-to-develop that makes some sense, this team has even less successful experience than before.
The Scottish Premiership may lack the quality of the top flight down south, but it has a physicality and in-your-faceness that combines poorly with the current personnel playing the current style.
The irony here is that Celtic have been dominant under Brendan Rodgers (whose approach isn’t wholly dissimilar to Martin’s); Rangers are effectively a lower-functioning version of the Celtic style. That’s not how you win friends at Ibrox.
To Rangers fans, that became interpreted as arrogance: you come up and think you can just play your way, you bring players up and assume that they will find it easy.
That’s probably unfair on Martin, who did at least warn of “early pain”. But perception is everything here.
Supporters do not care for being told what they have seen when it looks different to what their eyes are telling them.
If that wasn’t enough, there have been players frozen out of the squad who fans feel more affinity to than their new manager.
Nico Raskin, Rangers’ best player last season, was not in the Old Firm squad, although he has been named in Belgium’s senior squad for the forthcoming international break.
With Raskin’s father accusing Martin of mistreatment, the manager had been forced to field questions all week. That is a dangerous PR game.
Martin’s race is clearly run
While Martin is clearly a bloke trying his best, this is a misjudgement on a monumental scale: of how Rangers have found their success, of the characteristics of the managers who have brought it and the type of players the squad needed to avoid everything sinking into ignominy.
For that, we should look higher up the food chain. Martin has never pretended to be anything else, tactically; he was offered a job and accepted it, therefore was presumably given a mandate to implement his own style on a three-year contract.
In the story on the official website confirming the appointment read the following words, which now constitute evidence for the prosecution: “Rangers Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Stewart, who led the search along with Kevin Thelwell…”
Thelwell has only been here three months, and as such will be given some leeway.
There are still pertinent questions: why did he and Stewart think that Martin’s appointment would be popular?
If they anticipated the backlash, why did they take a giant leap of faith that always felt misplaced?
And how did Stewart, who has been here long enough to know the weaknesses in the squad and the type of player that might address it, allow the club to recruit so heavily without addressing the leadership issues?
After the game, in the press room underneath the Bill Struth Main Stand at Ibrox, Martin took his seat and awaited the obvious questions about his future. He was bullish, as he so often has been here.
Supporters speak of surprise at the vast gap between the performances and the manager’s assessments, but you can see why he does it. When the last person being wholly positive starts to turn, his race is run.
“I feel well supported by the ownership group and everyone at the club,” said Martin.
“I feel like they so want this to work and succeed over time. We need to win football matches for everyone outside of the club to feel the same way.”
Rangers are three months into a new era following the acquisition of a controlling stake by Andrew Cavenagh and the 49ers Enterprises.
Cavenagh and vice-chairman Paraag Marathe were at Ibrox on Sunday.
They saw the poor fare, they heard the boos and they will not have missed the banners of dissent.
There are two ways to react to a mistake: concede the error quickly, aim to rectify it, communicate with honesty and in doing so regain some trust from your people, or double down and persevere in the hope of being proven right.
Until now, Rangers supporters have wondered how long until Martin goes. Soon that will warp into: “Why have they not made a change yet?”
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