‘Martin will get time but fans have lost patience’

Russell Martin’s winless Rangers team in the Scottish Premiership is another another flop, another day.

Three games, three draws, and seventh place in the table leave them six points behind the team they should be closing the gap on. Their worst league season start in 36 years.

You wouldn’t believe that if you heard Martin. On the surface, at least, he doesn’t seem to have any doubts about his own abilities.

No mea culpa over anything was expressed following the 1-1 draw against St Mirren, only expressing the players’ inability to respond.

Martin also spoke of some of his players with an eye toward Ibrox, in shaky terms. He claimed that Hamza Igamane, a promising striker who made a bid last week, claimed to have been injured when called in to start as a substitute after an hour.

It illuminates the scope of Rangers’ issues, whether it is true or disproven.

Martin has a “jam tomorrow” element, which means that once the players understand his message, everything will work out. Perhaps the issue lies with the message.

And perhaps it’s related to other things like hiring.

Could Rangers have acquired Lennon Miller if Rangers, supported by new owners and allegedly receiving new funding, had made a decisive move in the off-season? They instead chose Joe Rothwell. What Rothwell is trying to accomplish is incredibly difficult to pin down.

When they could have had a more dependable Scott McKenna, they chose to sign Emmanuel Fernandez and Nasser Djiga.

After a successful loan spell with the club, they didn’t spend the money to bring Vaclav Cerny, a seasoned operator, back. Oliver Antman is in charge of them. Antman has deceived himself.

You must start enquiring about who is looking and why if Max Aarons is the best right-back they could find.

It could be argued that Lawrence Shankland, Josh Mulligan, and Kieron Bowie would have been better choices than the Rangers wanted.

Bojan Miovski may be on loan from Girona, according to reports. Do they need him, Lord?

Fans will criticize him for anything, including his hairstyle, according to Martin from the previous day.

Add to his signings, his tactics, his team’s lack of urgency and game time, their shape, their lack of physicality, their lack of goal threat, their desperate vulnerability in defense, and the perception that Martin, despite his confident talk, is working horribly.

It didn’t come as a surprise in Paisley. That was the issue. No jaws dropped, no gobs smacked, or eyebrows raised.

Most people assumed that this would happen, but it did. Last season, St. Mirren defeated Rangers in two victories, one draw, and one defeat, and they bullied their opponents to take the lead.

Two passes from Rangers center-backs’ own penalty area, hesitant defending, and a brilliant finish were all involved in their goal. It was due to St. Mirren.

Stephen Robinson was able to target Rangers precisely because Nicky Hayen, the head coach for Brugge, said last week that he was aware of where the space would be.

Frankly, Robinson would make a better Rangers teammate than Martin because he is tough, relentless, and overachieving. Robinson is not glamorous, of course.

He hasn’t succeeded in England’s top flight or achieved anything on the continent. Rangers frequently overlook the choice that is staring them in the face.

No matter how their defense is structured, Rangers’ goals and chances have been amateur-hour this season.

Djiga gave Brugge the opener last week, scoring only one goal, and sent himself off against Dundee last week.

A two-on-one relationship between Jonah Ayunga and Fernandez, a £3.5 million signing, is impossible to handle for John Souttar, a shadow of his former self. Both issues were handled by the St. Mirren striker effortlessly.

With each mediocre performance, this Rangers team’s lack of leadership is becoming more evident, and Martin’s lack of direction is becoming more prevalent.

They discovered a draw. The second half was won by them. Martin feasts on these crumbs.

Rangers and Celtic would be playing each other’s way right now, but it’s tedious if titles were decided based on possession percentage and number of passes. They are extremely talented and lack creative thinking.

Fans of Rangers are turning to thermonuclear.

Its future is uncertain, according to vice-chairman Paraag Marathe and chairman Andrew Cavenagh.

They are distant and perhaps more patient as a result of not being in the goldfish bowl and not susceptible to the fans’ booed off protests.

They don’t support the Rangers, so they don’t experience the insane emotional rush that others would have experienced in the past.

Their leader is Martin. They have already stated that a significant amount of work needs to be done to rebuild a squad and establish a culture, and that it is unlikely that they will take the decision to do so in the coming weeks or months.

Starting over with a new manager and all the difficulties and costs associated, or giving them a choice to build something decent once more, perhaps even much more? It’s the latter at this time.

However, Martin must provide proof that he is trustworthy. He hasn’t yet accomplished that. It’s unlikely that he’ll play against Celtic on Sunday or Brugge this week.

He faces yet another challenge in the process. Despite Philippe Clement’s mistakes, his Rangers team won 3-0 at Ibrox last year. His team did at least win 3-2 at Celtic Park and 1-1 at Ibrox when Barry Ferguson took over.

If Martin doesn’t perform as well as those administrations, their Old Firm results will be used against him. It appears to be a very large challenge.

He has the Edinburgh clubs at Ibrox after Celtic. The toxicity will be unmatched if none of those games are won, which is saying something.

Martin will have some time to save himself. It’s entirely up to him whether he has talent.