Well, where on earth do we start with the absolute chaos that has now engulfed Ibrox? The absolute and utter unprecedented maelstrom of borderline anarchy that we are now seeing in Govan as a result of yet another predictable bad result. Russell Martin’s Rangers contempt is obvious.
Predictable
Rangers lost to Hearts yesterday in one that we could all see coming a mile off. Even more predictably, Lawrence Shankland, who Rangers should have signed and who Ibrox Noise utterly proposed and promoted as a potential addition, scored a brilliant goal and got a second. Bottom line here is that, once again, Rangers were the architect of their own downfall.
But the real question now is the absolutely unprecedented toxicity around the manager, Russell Martin. There has never before been a situation like this at Ibrox, where a lame duck manager has gone from simply bad at his job to a mutual hatred between himself and the support. Russell Martin hates Rangers, there is no question about that. His conduct since he got the job has been pure contempt, and his conduct since it went down south even further has been absolutely acrid.
Fans
Now of course we do not remove the fans from blame here, including technically ourselves. Rangers fans began the mutiny in Bruges with the expletive chants to do with ‘Russell Martin get him out’. Consequently, you’re not going to absolutely love fans who say such things to you, we acknowledge that. But the problem of course is Martin’s own conduct and personality and actions since getting the job have led to this outcome.
There is no question that Rangers have our most hated manager by a mile. Not any of Martin’s predecessors ever came close to this level of fan contempt. Division, yes, and by the very very end fans were in favour of that manager leaving. Michael Beale, Philippe Clement, these guys all lost popularity towards the end, and the favour was that they move on. There was never however the level of abject hatred that we are seeing aimed towards Russell Martin.
Unpopular
He was not a popular appointment, we absolutely broadcast that. No question that the majority of fans did not want him, even if the majority of fans sucked it up once he was appointed. But today we we have never seen this level of pure animosity aimed at a Rangers manager. It is an absolutely staggering state of affairs at the level of mutual dislike now between manager and fans.
It is pure hatred on every level. Martin doesn’t want to be at Rangers. We don’t know why he chose this job. We don’t know why he came here. Maybe it’s because he hates Rangers and wants to destroy the club inside out, but either way Russell Martin is a dead man walking and has been for some considerable time.
But his hatred and Russell Martin’s Rangers contempt is definitely a new situation for fans to be in. This is completely uncharted territory.