2 days ago
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Barely three months ago when it was confirmed that Rangers had been taken over by new American investors, it felt like a much-needed fresh start.
Having endured all manner of endless misery over the past 13 years or so, supporters felt energised and excited about what was to come once the 49ers Enterprises got involved.
This was a chance to restore the club to its former glory and to rebuild an institution which had spent far too long on its knees.
Yet, in the space of just 90 days since the takeover was completed, Rangers have gone from delirium to the depths of despair.
To completely and utterly demoralise an entire fanbase in double-quick time takes some doing, but Russell Martin has managed to do exactly that.
What unfolded in a Champions League play-off against Club Brugge on Thursday night was a horror show, an abomination of a performance that piled more pressure on Martin.
Rangers players look dejected during their Champions League play-off defeat to Brugge
Russell Martin and Rangers were the subject of some Belgian jokes after the match
It was no laughing matter for Djeidi Gassama as Rangers lost six goals without reply
The vast majority of supporters are now calling for him to be sacked, albeit the club are determined to stick with him for now.
This is a cultural thing with the Americans. They're not really in the business of sacking people. In the NFL, Kyle Shanahan, the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, kept his job last season despite a woeful campaign which saw them miss out on the play-offs.
At Leeds United, where 49ers Enterprises also have a controlling influence, they stuck with Daniel Farke as manager despite a slow start and his failure to win promotion in the first season.
But the way this is shaping up, and given how spectacularly this has unravelled, Martin could end up being the Liz Truss of Scottish football management.
At least Truss had the decency to do the right thing and resign. Martin will carry on despite it being abundantly clear that he is hopelessly out of his depth.
Deep in the bowels of the Jan Breydel Stadium on Thursday night, one of the Brugge players was asked in the mixed zone how it felt to have played a friendly match in a Champions League tie.
Cue much hilarity and Belgian belly-laughs. This is what Rangers have become under Martin; a gutless, shambolic rabble devoid of leadership who are the laughing stock of Europe.
Only a few months ago, this was a club who went deep into the Europa League knockout stages and knocked out a Fenerbahce team managed by Jose Mourinho along the way.
How do you go from that to this? Rangers will be in Pot One for today's Europa League draw. But rather than expecting another good run, fans are fearful that a few more spankings could be on the cards.
Certainly if Martin is allowed to continue as manager, there is nothing to suggest this team would be even remotely capable of challenging in the competition. Nothing. Zilch.
Martin must now somehow prepare his side for the visit of Celtic on Sunday in the league
The opening Europa League fixture is scheduled for September 25, but Martin won't make it that far if this continues. He can't. Not with this level of fury and toxicity among supporters.
Late on Thursday night, supporters draped a banner across the front gates at Ibrox which called for his immediate removal as manager.
With Celtic due at Ibrox on Sunday afternoon, more protests are expected. More chants calling for Martin to be sacked. And, perhaps most damningly of all, more empty seats.
The fact that so many Rangers fans plan to effectively boycott an Old Firm match is bordering on unthinkable, but that's where we are at.
If Celtic go to Ibrox and win on Sunday, the manager's position would be untenable. It is probably untenable even now after the Brugge debacle and after his failure to win any of his three league games so far.
But defeat to Celtic and falling nine points behind before the end of August would put the tin lid on what is rapidly shaping up to be one of the most disastrous managerial appointments in the history of Scottish football.
For the time being, Martin still retains support from those above him. He talks about a sense of calm and about how things will settle down and be much clearer after the transfer window closes on Monday.
But, in real terms, it looks for all the world that he now has one game to save his job. A majority of Rangers fans don't even feel he should be allowed into last-chance saloon territory.
In their eyes, the body of work he has compiled so far is evidence enough in itself that he should be sacked with immediate effect.
Martin's man-management has to be questioned. After labouring to a draw against Motherwell on the opening day of the season, he absolutely slaughtered his players.
Hamza Igamane downed tools and refused to play against St Mirren last Sunday, information which Martin chose to put out into the public domain rather than keeping it in-house.
Nico Raskin, who remains the club's best player, finds himself out of the team. Raskin is a Belgian international midfielder, yet he can't get a game ahead of Joe Rothwell, a jobbing midfielder from the English Championship.
If that's an odd call from Martin, then even more bizarre was his post-match attempt on Thursday night to go crawling back to James Tavernier.
The Rangers players, including Findlay Curtis, will need to pick themselves up for the derby
After bombing the club captain out of the team to accommodate the hopeless Max Aarons, Martin was grovelling in his assertion that Tavernier came on and showed great leadership.
You can bet your bottom dollar that Tavernier will now be back in the team against Celtic. But a manager can't go flip-flopping in terms of his man-management with senior players like Raskin and Tavernier.
It is hardly a state secret at Rangers that Raskin wants to leave. He could well join Igamane in heading for the exit before Monday's transfer deadline.
But even if Rangers were to pocket a couple of chunky transfer fees, why should Martin be trusted as the manager to reinvest any of it?
His signings have been absolutely dreadful so far. Rothwell and Aarons are just over-hyped guff from down south. Likewise Nasser Djiga, who was awful against Brugge.
Jayden Meghoma is a young boy who already looks lost. Other than Djeidi Gassama, it is difficult to make a case for any of the summer recruits having anything about them.
Jack Butland was one of the few players to receive pass marks - and he lost six goals
The jury remains out on Oliver Antman and Thelo Aasgaard. But the squad looks weak and fragile, with too many players being swallowed up by the pressure of the environment in which they now operate.
There is no style of play, no obvious sense of purpose about what it is Martin is asking this team to do. Out of possession, they are wide open. It is feeble.
Genuinely, without any sense of hyperbole or exaggeration, it could have been double figures against Brugge. The Belgians hit the crossbar twice and forced Jack Butland into several good saves.
Perhaps the most galling thing for Rangers fans at the moment is the fact that Celtic have some major problems of their own and look vulnerable this season.
Even a semi-competent Rangers team would surely fancy their chances of having a crack at them. Not only on Sunday, but in the title race as a whole.
But this team are miles off it. Martin and his misfits look doomed for a season of mediocrity. A season of mutiny and meltdown.
They don't look even remotely capable of laying a glove on a Celtic team who suffered their own Champions League humiliation in midweek.
With one match to try and save his job, Martin needs a miracle.
