Rangers keep Russell Martin for Old Firm despite Bruges mauling

Russell Martin will be in the dugout for the Old Firm derby on Sunday after the Rangers hierarchy resolved to keep the under-fire head coach in post for now. Martin’s position is not understood to be under immediate threat after his side was dumped of the Champions League.

The travelling Rangers support chanted for Martin to be sacked during their 6-0 defeat to Club Bruges, sealing a 9-1 aggregate score. But the former Southampton manager, appointed at the start of June, will take charge against Celtic.

Martin apologised to fans but insisted he was still the man to lead the club forward.

The joint-heaviest defeat in 153 years of Rangers history left Martin staring into the abyss after only 83 days in the hot seat. Rangers have never lost a competitive game by more than six goals, but were already 5-0 down at half-time here with Max Aarons having been sent off after only eight minutes. They had goalkeeper Jack Butland and the woodwork to thank for the scoreline not becoming even more damning.

ALEX BIERENS DE HAAN/GETTY IMAGES

Martin said he had no fears that the club’s new American ownership would pull the trigger, but acknowledged that his side had plumbed new depths as they collapsed at the Jan Breydel Stadium.

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“There is no message to the players right now. I think we have to just feel the pain. So that’s the message. There’s no point dissecting the game after that when everyone’s emotions are high. We’ll take a look at it,” he said.

“To the fans, I have nothing but an apology. I’m really sorry they had to witness that. It’s humiliating. It’s really painful. So I have nothing but disappointment.

“I think we had such a tough task tonight. The most hurtful thing is we make it so tough for ourselves — we did last Tuesday [in a 3-1 first-leg defeat at home], we did tonight. So much self-inflicted pain. And then, because we’re not strong enough as a group yet, our response to a bit of disappointment is just so poor.

“So I understand the fans’ frustration. I understand the disappointment. I understand their anger because they love this club. And they want to see a team that they’re proud of. Even with ten men, there wasn’t enough to be proud about tonight. I completely agree that the manner of defeat is not acceptable and really hurtful. But I have no other choice but to keep working and to keep focusing on what’s going to help us moving forward.

Tresoldi stoops to open the scoring for the hosts inside five minutes REUTERS/YVES HERMAN

“I don’t think we could ask for a better game [than Sunday’s derby] to move forward and to try to build some connection. I don’t think I’ve learnt anything new tonight. I’m just really hurt, really embarrassed by the defeat. It’s probably the toughest night I’ve had as head coach and manager. But it doesn’t change the fact that I think we can get this place going, we can get the team going, progress, move forward and grow.

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“And we have an opportunity to really do that, to feel everything tonight that comes our way and to accept it. We have to, with the manner of defeat. And then we have a chance to really show some character and some growth and some personality and desire on Sunday.”

Pressed on whether he felt his relationship with the fans to be recoverable, Russell’s response was emphatic. “Yeah, by winning football matches. When it’s got to that point before, maybe there’s been changes and the club’s changed too much and performance has not improved that much or changed too much.

“I have to take everything that’s thrown at me and so do the players, so do the group. It won’t affect the work that we do moving forward.”

Aarons is given a straight red after just eight minutes for pulling back Tzolis GETTY/ALEX BIERENS DE HAAN

Asked whether a win over Brendan Rodgers’s defending champions was essential to stay in post, Martin said: “Not to secure my job, I think we need to win to make ourselves feel better, to make the fans feel better, to actually give them a performance to be proud of. So all the focus and energy now goes to that.”

Martin had already been written off by large swathes of the Rangers support. Here, the recently appointed head coach was condemned by the weight of history.

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This result was right down there with the 7-1 defeats by Celtic in 1957 and Liverpool in 2022. Just as painful as the 6-0 thrashings handed out by Aberdeen in 1954 and Real Madrid nine years later.

It was every bit as bad as it sounds. Nothing we saw from Martin’s team was anywhere close to acceptable for a travelling support who made their feelings perfectly clear. Their advice as to where Martin might take himself was explicit — very explicit.

On the eve of the second leg, the former Southampton boss had again insisted — in the face of all evidence — that this Champions League play-off tie was still alive. In the wake of an abject humiliation, this total and utter dismemberment, he looks a dead man walking.

Martin’s early record could be viewed more favourably were there any sign of progress. Instead, the same shortcomings, the same failures of system and implementation, are to the fore game after game and the moment Rangers ran into a clinical opponent with executioners in the final third, this sort of carnage was always on the cards.

Stankovic fires the fifth goal past Butland’s despairing dive SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL/KIRK O’ROURKE

Martin had said the opening 20 minutes of the first leg, during which Rangers conceded three times, would be “as hard as it would ever be” for his players. Only eight days later, it was somehow even worse.

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It now looks even more idiotic that Martin could find no starting place for the Belgian Nicolas Raskin back in his homeland — he later admitted that the midfielder could well be one of several further departures before the transfer window closes on Monday.

No control, no composure and no judgment: the Ibrox side were all at sea and when Aarons took the long walk, Martin had to send for their erstwhile captain — James Tavernier taking over at right back with Oliver Antman sacrificed.

The Belgians came in waves, particularly down the sides, and Rangers offered all the resistance of a feather to a tsunami.

Rangers could hardly get a touch, and when they did, they were wont to immediately play themselves into fresh trouble as Nasser Djiga and John Souttar exploded backpasses in Butland’s general direction.

For a time, the goalkeeper was all that stood between his team and outright humiliation. He had just clawed away an Aleksandar Stankovic piledriver when Christos Tzolis swung the resulting corner into the mix and Hans Vanaken, the captain, rose higher than the leaden-footed Danilo to head in the second.

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The first had come inside barely four minutes through Nicolò Tresoldi. Once again, the goal was a wincingly soft Rangers concession, the full back Joaquin Seys making the most of an acre of space down the left to crack an inviting ball to the near post, where Tresoldi got there in front of Djiga to give Butland no chance. Once more, Rangers had done nothing to anticipate or react to the danger, and their already threadbare hopes had been sliced in two.

Aarons was shown a straight red card for pulling Tzolis to the floor as the speedy attacker pursued a ball over the top. A clear last-man foul, it gave the referee, Felix Zwayer, little option.

Tzolis had a goal-bound volley deflected past by Tavernier then the bar was left twanging for a second time as Hans Vanaken effected a brutal first-time hit. Brandon Mechele headed marginally wide from a corner, Tzolis threatened again, then Seys tapped home with his right foot after seeing Butland repel an initial attempt with his left.

Bruges were queuing up; Rangers were finding ways to duck even more responsibility. Seys — a left back, let us not forget — had all the time in the world to pick his spot with a volley from the six-yard line, then Stankovic headed in Vanaken’s lofted ball for the fifth. Three of them had come in the space of six minutes as Rangers fractured into a million tiny pieces.

Martin made three further changes at the break, introducing Raskin, Mohamed Diomane and Findlay Curtis for Joe Rothwell, Thelo Aasgaard and Djeidi Gassama. The bloke who gave the deckchairs on the Titanic a final shuffle will have had greater hope in his heart while doing so.

Less than five minutes after the break, Bruges were in again. A glorious little interchange between Stankovic and Tresoldi sent Tzolis scampering into the box in total isolation once more and the little man clipped the ball into Butland’s far corner.

“Always look on the bright side of life,” the home fans chanted, using their phones to light up the stands. For Martin and for Rangers, total darkness had descended.

Club Bruges (4-3-3): S Mignolet — K Sabbe (L Audoor 72), J Spileers, B Mechele, J Seys (H Siquet 58) — A Stankovic, H Vanaken, R Onyedika — C Forbs (M Diakhon 46), N Tresoldi (K Furo 68), C Tzolis (G Nilsson 58) Booked Nilsson.

Rangers (4-3-3): J Butland — M Aarons, J Souttar, N Djiga, J Meghoma — J Rothwell (N Raskin 46), T Aasgaard (N Diomande 46), L Cameron — O Antman (J Tavernier 12), Danilo (C Barron 59), D Gassama (F Curtis 46). Booked Meghoma Sent off Aarons.

Referee F Zwayer (Ger). Attendance 26,252.

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