Mutiny and misery: Russell Martin's Rangers tanker has run aground and Celtic have chance to sink his ship

After a wretched week in Europe for both Glasgow teams, crashing out of the Champions League qualifiers in calamitous fashion, it is time to retrain sights on domestic matters at Ibrox. Rangers and Celtic pitch up in Govan for a Sunday high noon showdown carrying a fair degree of baggage.

The hosts have the most excess luggage. Spanked 6-0 by Club Brugge on Wednesday night, head coach Russell Martin - only appointed in early June - is facing mutiny from his fanbase, hasn’t won a Premiership match yet and is embroiled in a bitter saga with midfielder Nicolas Raskin. That’s a lot to deal with.

Celtic arrive in a better place given that they’ve won all three opening league matches, yet losing to Kairat Almaty of Kazakhstan on Tuesday on penalties and missing out on the Champions League for the first time in four seasons was an almighty blow. That failure comes under the cloud of inadequate recruitment, with their manager Brendan Rodgers lamenting the lack of quality signings to replace those that have left.

So when referee Don Robertson blows his whistle to start this derby match, two hugely frustrated sets of supporters will be watching on. But nevertheless, this match is bigger for one club: Rangers and their embattled manager simply cannot afford to lose this.

For starters, Rangers already trail Celtic by six points after three rounds of fixtures. The 1-1 draws against Motherwell, Dundee and St Mirren make it their worst start to a domestic term since 1985. Falling nine points behind, even at this nascent stage of the campaign, would be a perilous position to be in.

Many see no Rangers future for Martin

Then there is Martin. The poor guy surely wasn’t expecting a cacophony of calls for his departure this early into his Rangers tenure. Yet that is what he is facing. Even the club’s fan advisory board, a respected group who have a direct line into the Ibrox board room, want him gone. They see no future under Martin - regardless of the Old Firm outcome.

Martin’s many detractors point to his slow, insipid style of football, his team’s serious defensive deficiencies and the poor impact of new recruits from England such as Max Aarons and Joe Rothwell. The Raskin saga is not helping either. The 24-year-old Belgian is a darling of the Rangers support, yet it is suggested he has been annexed from the squad and won’t feature against Celtic.

Martin has pointed to disharmony within his group of players and says it may get worse before it gets better. He talks about everyone being “all-in” but also the need for some “pain” as he oversees the mother of rebuilds. Nobody can deny Rangers were in a mess before he came in, but he has piled more toys on the floor rather than putting some away. There are no signs of on-field progress.

What is key, though, is that for now, Martin retains the support of Rangers’ new owners. The head coach spoke of reassuring conversations this week with chairman Andrew Cavenagh, chief executive Patrick Stewart and sporting director Kevin Thelwell. Martin might as well be wearing a bulletproof jacket when he speaks to the media, such is his confidence of being given time to - in his words - “turn the tanker around”.

If it has already run aground, and many feel it has, then Celtic could sink Martin once and for all. Surely the most patient Rangers board could not ignore a heavy defeat by their bitter rivals on their own patch. Given Rangers have averaged an astonishing 16 shots against them in their six Champions League qualifiers, it is safe to assume Celtic will get chances. It’s just whether they take them.

And that has been the problem in the big games for Celtic this season. More than 210 minutes of football were played against an organised but limited Kairat Almaty team and the Scottish champions failed to score, or even fashion many gilt-edged chances. Those that did come were spurned by the horribly out-of-sorts Daizen Maeda, who is a pale shadow of last season’s goal machine.

Rodgers tries to show a united front

Much of this summer at Celtic has been spent lamenting the failure to properly replace sold duo Kyogo Furuhashi and Nicolas Kuhn, plus injured forward Jota. More than 50 goals and assists have been taken out of the Celtic team from last season and before the second leg in Almaty, only £3 million had been spent on recruits. It is ironic that Antwerp’s winger Michel-Ange Balikwisha was signed two days after the Kazakh catastrophe for nearly £5m.

Rodgers must have lost count of the number of press conferences he’s been coaxed into speaking about recruitment failures. There is clearly a deep-rooted issue at Celtic in that department, although the Northern Irishman has been at pains to point out that everyone within the building remains “connected” and wants what is best for the club.

In the immediate term, Rodgers must find a way to beat Rangers in the league for the first time in almost a year. The 3-0 win over them on September 1 to commence last season’s meetings was an anomaly. The Ibrox side went on to win under two different managers at two different venues as well as a 1-1 draw in their last meeting in May. The Celtic manager usually has the whip hand in such fixtures and the recent games will have stung him.

“Play well,” was his simple response on how to regain superiority. “That's a start. You think of performance. We've won most of our games against Rangers because we've played well. Focused on performance. Not getting too caught up in the whole hype of it all. Playing without fear. And playing the level of football that's expected here. When we've done that in the majority of my time here, we've played well and won the games. The games last year, the games we lost, we didn't deserve to win.”

Even with their squad looking inferior to a year ago, Celtic are rightly favourites. They have more experience of this fixture within their ranks and have a team that while has been blunter than usual is more structured, cohesive and disciplined than Rangers. Balikwisha is likely to make his debut, especially if striker Adam Idah’s pending £7m move to Swansea City gathers pace in the next 24 hours.

Rangers may have a debutant in attack as well, with the Ibrox side hoping to get all the paperwork signed off for Bojan Miovski. The former Aberdeen man’s transfer on a four-year deal back to Scotland from Girona in Spain’s La Liga was confirmed on Saturday lunchtime and he would surely lead the line if available.

Rangers need every bit of help they can get. Ibrox can be a hostile place at the best of times; imagine it at its worst. Both clubs, like tired boxers, are on the ropes for different reasons, but Rodgers can probably afford a negative Old Firm outcome more than his counterpart. Given where he stands right now with the fans, punch-drunk Martin is surely one haymaker away from a knock-out.