Livingston vs Rangers LIVE as James Tavernier misses a penalty

I've liked Oli and Connor when they've both been on the pitch. Bojan scored last week and we have to rotate him and Youssef a bit whilst they're picking up their fitness and getting up to speed.

I thought Youssef didn't brilliantly in midweek. It's the first time he's played a lot of minutes so we've had a very tired Youssef the last couple of days but he's ready to really make an impact today.

And Bojan will come in and hopefully pick up where he left off against Hibs.

The owners will be keen to give him a little bit of time to try and turn things around because once you make a decision like that and you’ve given him a long term contract, you've got to be seen to at least be giving him a bit of a chance.

Although the fans are in uproar at the moment, they start stringing a few wins together and things will calm down pretty quickly, I'd imagine.

It's been really tough for him to try and implement his style of play, we saw it a bit at Southampton if you go back to the season that we had in the Championship when we got promoted.

We started the season, I think we won the first three games, but we were nicking goals right at the end of matches, literally nicking points at the end of games, just doing enough to get through.

Then we lost five games in a row and we were bottom half of the table and questions were starting to be asked like they are now.

Then after those five defeats in a row we went 25 matches unbeaten. All of a sudden Russell Martin is the best thing since sliced bread, because that's what football fans do.

We're a pretty fickle bunch when it comes to results. And if Russell strings together a load of victories now, and if one of those victories happens to include the Old Firm, people will start changing their mind pretty quickly.

Russell Martin feels they’re in a good place in training and they’re in they’re best position in terms of confidence within the group although having to play against Genk with 10 men for a large part of the game maybe didn’t reflect how Russell feels about the team.

Coming to Livingston is going to be a difficult game, although the surface is far improved to the artificial one the last time they played there here but it’s baked in sun and will be sticky. It’s okay talking about bossing possession and creating chances but the stats show Rangers are a bottom six team in terms of the really important stats: the goalmouth action.

They need to change that and it doesn’t matter how they do it. I sat and watched Hearts here and they had to change shape and make substitutions and got the win and they are sitting top of the league. It doesn’t matter how you do it - it’s just winning the game but it won’t be easy.

If you delve into the stats the Dundee game stands out as one they should have won in terms of the new term xGs but I’ve struggled to see the domination he wants. You have to offer a lot more. He’s got players he has acquired and has made lots of signings and spent a fair bit of money on a squad that should be able to score goals and win games.

The evidence is hard to find. They’ve only scored three league goals. It’s hard to make a case. I hope he gets it going because it’s a team I spent a few months at last year and I know how big the demand is and when you’re not winning games the pressure comes on your shoulders and he is under pressure. He’ll know that.

You guys love making out like every one is a big conversation about 'is he going, is he staying, what has been said' - but just generally we chat about the football club and how we can improve, about the next game.

It's never just me and Andrew, it's me and my staff, or me, Kevin (Thelwell), Andrew, Patrick (Stewart) - all the guys in there.

We have a good conversation, an honest conversation and it was the same again. There was nothing out of the ordinary with that.

I am probably the most frustrated one, because I am the head coach of the team.

So, whilst everyone is feeling a bit frustrated there is an acceptance from them as people that run football clubs and sports teams for a very long time, things can take a bit of time to change and get to where you want to get too.

It's not always going to happen overnight. We are all frustrated, everyone is feeling it. The fans are feeling it, and inside the building we are feeling it more than anyone because we are the ones who have to go out and put a performance on the pitch, and get scrutinised and critiqued for that.

So, we are all together. I really feel that, everyone has stuck together through this period. And if we can get through that period, which I really believe we will, we will be so much better for it.

I remember that game, Dolly Menga scored and it was Steven Gerrard’s first time at Livingston. We've caught a lot of managers out here in their first games, hopefully that's the same with Russell.

Ange’s first game, we beat them 1-0 here. I think Lenny, his first game back with Celtic here, 2-0 as well. Maybe teams come here a wee bit complacent.

There's a lot of new players in the Rangers team that are not used to difficult away venues in Scotland, and it's probably easier to adapt to that the second time round rather than the first time round.

So we try to use everything we can to our advantage, but I think the big one for me is Thursday night’s game. I don't envy being in their position in terms of having to play Thursday night Sunday, I think it's a quick turnaround, it's difficult in terms of recovery and a coaching point of view.

So we need to try and use as much of that to our advantage as possible. But I'm also not buying into the Rangers are weak and you can get at them, I'm not really having that if I'm honest.

Russell going in, it's a transitional period for the club, not just for the manager and players, it's for the club. There's a new ownership model in the club, and I just think it was always going to take a bit of time. You're never going to hit the ground running, so it was always going to take a bit of time.

And if you look at the amount of managers they've probably had over the last 10 years, it probably exceeds the amount of managers they've had over the previous 20 years.

So the club's kind of been struggling for a wee bit of continuity. I look at the Hearts game and I think they were really unlucky. Rangers got told their goal should have been a goal, and Shankland’s goal shouldn't have been. So if you want to swing that around, they wouldn't have probably come out the end of losing that game of football.

They played probably three of the in-form teams already, drew with Celtic, should have got something from the Hearts game and beat Hibs. So this narrative that they're not in a great place, I'm not really sure I buy into that.

A complete and utter sense of hopelessness surrounds Russell Martin’s tenure at Ibrox.

And yet he continues to exude an unmistakable air of superiority in the face of crushing mediocrity on the park.

But there are no winners in Martin’s story.

Rangers have been taken over by new owners whose first appointees behind the scenes have chosen the wrong head coach to lead the team.

The players signed at great expense to take the team forward will start Sunday's game at Livingston one place off the bottom of the Premiership table as proof of their unsuitability.

And the Rangers support have been driven to exhibiting conduct that does not show them up in a great light at the same time.

Martin might be miscast in his managerial role while his manner might grate on people expecting a higher level of humility under the prevailing circumstances.

But the bile directed towards him has, on occasion, crossed the line between verbal abuse and anti-social behaviour.

A form of human debasement which confirms Martin will never win over his detractors and which is distressing in nature.

However, in the wake of the latest, demonstrably awful, performance against Genk in the Europa League on Thursday night, it is also allowable to point out that the head coach deserves all he gets at times.

By his conduct during the post-match press conference at Ibrox, Martin appears to believe there are no conceivable circumstances under which he is to blame for anything.

He clearly defies anyone to say, or even suggest, he should be held to account for anything of a negative nature associated with Rangers.

Martin makes a laughing stock of himself when he implies he is above being judged by a jury of his peers.

Or, as he would know them, lesser mortals.

At three o’clock this afternoon,he will come up against a fellow manager who, in his time, has had no choice but to confront his own human frailties.

David Martindale has served as many years in prison as Rangers have league points so far this season, as a consequence of a previous life involved in dealing drugs.

It doesn’t get much more basic than that.

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