There is nowhere to hide any longer. For these players, some of whom have ushered manager after manager out the door, it’s time up.
Russell Martin’s epic post-match press conference following a joke of a performance in a 1-1 draw at Motherwell has surely put them on notice.
For three years in a row, Rangers have failed to win their first game of the league season. No one from the old guard can be regarded as safe. Not Nicolas Raskin. Not Mohamed Diomande. Not even Jack Butland.
Rangers have to rid themselves of the loser mentality, the mental weakness, that has kept them in the doldrums too long. The only realistic way to achieve that is to clear the decks and put those who can’t be sold into the stiffs.
Lord knows how sporting director Kevin Thelwell will do it, but he needs to start hauling in money, doing what he can to get deals done for as many of them as possible and raising funds for even more new faces.
There’s nowhere to hide for Martin either. Three games in or not, he has major questions to answer — starting with Tuesday night’s first leg of the Champions League third qualifying round tie with Viktoria Plzen.
James Tavernier and Russell Martin can’t hide their dejection after Rangers’ 1-1 draw at Fir Park
Not even midfielder Nico Raskin should be regarded as safe if Rangers clear out the old guard
Motherwell’s Emmanuel Longelo celebrates his late equaliser against Rangers on Saturday
After the gobbledygook of Michael Beale and Philippe Clement, it was refreshing to hear him call a spade a spade after the Fir Park chaos. He called out the squad’s mentality and accused some players of going into self-preservation mode — happy to be outfought and outplayed by opposition on a fraction of their wages.
There’s been talk too of resistance to some small rules he has tried to establish regarding culture and behaviour.
He stopped short of stating there will be major changes against Plzen. But where does it leave him if he fillets the team and performance and then picks more or less the same guys? As welcome as his straight-talking was, he’s put himself in a tricky position here.
Martin has been working with these players he singled out for criticism for weeks. He picked them. So far, his teams have been a disjointed mess and he needs to do something about it.
It remains a minor miracle they got through the Panathinaikos tie, but Saturday’s performance offered up a sledgehammer-style dose of reality.
A huge amount of the focus on Martin’s approach is around his preferred style. What he wants his team to look like in time. That’s fine. The way it looks right now, though, is terrifying.
Knocking the ball around inside their own box lands them in needless bother. There are real doubts over whether the players are capable of it.
Motherwell did pretty much the same thing under their new boss Jens Berthel Askou, but got some real success, particularly second half. They cut through Rangers like a hot knife through butter. The visiting defence was static, caught out on umpteen occasions with simple passes through the middle. The midfield was posted missing way too often.
Possession was coughed up constantly. The forward line looked as blunt as during Clement’s time. Where was the width? And that’s before we start on individuals being played out of position, something for which Martin is entirely responsible.
Max Aarons can’t play left-back. A new one needs to be signed, he needs to move to the right and captain James Tavernier, who opened the scoring at Fir Park with a header, needs to become second-choice in that position.
Kieran Dowell was surplus to requirements last term and shipped out on loan to Birmingham, who seemed eager to buy him permanently. What he is now doing playing right-wing is anyone’s guess. Why he was given 90 minutes at Motherwell following an insipid display is another puzzle.
Dowell is not going to make it at Rangers, but Martin promoted him to his ‘senior leadership group’ and has made him a regular. Danilo is not going to make it either. There have been injury issues with Cyriel Dessers and Hamza Igamane, but it’s clear that something major needs to be done with the centre-forward position.
A buyer has to be found for Igamane or Dessers — or both — and the money spent on recruiting a striker who can be depended upon.
Igamane has something interesting about him, but you suspect he’s looking for a new challenge. He’s raw and doesn’t have a conventional footballing background. Is he able to take on the information, make himself open to being coached, the way the new manager wants? If someone in France offers decent money, it should be taken.
Oliver Antman is on the way from Go Ahead Eagles and Mikey Moore was in the stand at the weekend, awaiting international clearance following his move from Tottenham. They have the potential to improve things across the front, but midfield is shaping up as a headache too.
Summer arrival Thelo Aasgaard will be fit soon. He’ll take on the left-sided role of the midfield three. Where that leaves Raskin remains to be seen. Right now, you’d venture it’s out of the team.
He’d probably prefer to play in the No 6 position, but that’s Joe Rothwell’s role and he is Martin’s man. It all makes for a difficult situation with the Belgian, one which might be best solved with a transfer if anyone is willing to pony up the dough.
Same goes for Diomande. The Ivorian has real ability, but has become a frustrating character. It’s hard not to think of him as one of the prime switch-on, switch-off merchants to whom Martin was referring. He did well to last 63 minutes before being replaced by Lyall Cameron. No one who was in the building before Martin is indispensable.
Everyone saw Emmanuel Longelo’s late equaliser coming. Tom Sparrow should then have killed it in time added-on.
Talk of dreadful mentalities at Ibrox should come as no shock. Barry Ferguson looked ready to implode after a home loss to Hibs. Billy Dodds went further, stating only 30 per cent of the playing squad looked up to the task.
Martin has clearly clocked that and needs to fix it, but he has to look within as well. Rangers fans were angry at Fir Park. They are not going to give him endless time to shape his vision.
Not when things are as jaw-droppingly bad as this.
Motherwell (4-3-1-2): Ward 8; Koutroumbis 7, McGinn 7, Gordon 7 (O’Donnell 71), LONGELO 9; Watt 7, Slattery 8 (Sparrow 90), Fadinger 7; Just 8 (Balmer 90); Maswanhise 7, Stamatelopolous 6 (Said 79).
Booked: Watt.
Manager: Jens Berthel Askou 9.
Rangers (4-3-3): Butland 7; Tavernier 5, Djiga 6, Souttar 6, Aarons 4; Rothwell 4 (Bajrami 73), Diomande 3 (Cameron 63), Raskin 4 (Barron 73); Dowell 3, Danilo 3 (Dessers 63), Gassama 5 (Cortes 82).
Booked: Cameron, Dowell, Aarons, Tavernier.
Manager: Russell Martin 3.
Referee: Steven McLean.
Attendance: 10,616.
