Rangers' behind-scenes mess makes Celtic call easier - and summit-meeting heat shouldered by key figure

“I don’t think we’ll be beat 6-0 again,” Russell Martin commented in an interview afterwards and maybe saying nothing at all might be the best option if that is what the manager feels Rangers fans want to hear in these trying hours and days. The worst part is can he even be sure?

The “don’t think” suggests not. Celtic arrive at Ibrox on Sunday and even though they currently have their own problems, the possibility of a multi-goal defeat for Rangers cannot be discounted. Won’t get beaten 6-0 again sounds more like a wish than a promise. With this brittle, raw and frankly not up to standard Rangers team, can anyone be sure of anything anymore?

Has any Rangers manager endured such a traumatic start to their tenure? Already there’s been the booing of substitutions and fans walking out of games 20 minutes in. There’s team news leaks and players refusing to come on to play and banners strung up on the gates demanding heads roll.

Once, just one of these events would have felt intolerable for someone in charge at Ibrox.

Martin is fighting fires everywhere though claims to have the backing of chief executive Patrick Stewart and Kevin Thelwell, who, as sporting director, must take his share of the heat for Rangers’ worst start to the season in generations. He not only had a huge say in appointing Martin, he also, one assumes, greenlighted his signings and perhaps even recommended them.

Thelwell has to take Rangers responsibility

You’d like to think Thelwell is taking responsibility by hosting some kind of summit behind closed doors. Martin, of course, will be present. And who else? Few even ardent Rangers fans might recognise in their local supermarket. Technical director Dan Purdy, first-team coach Mike Williamson, assistant manager Matt Gill and goalkeeper coach Sal Bibbo. Actually, the last-named gentleman, once of Bath City and Havant and Waterlooville, might be excused. Goalkeeper Jack Butland is the only man at Ibrox currently earning his corn. Otherwise, it’s a mess.

Few Rangers fans are confident there’s anyone in the building qualified to turn things around. The Rangers Supporters Association, for what it’s worth, have this morning released a statement to say it is “our considered view that the current Head Coach should be relieved of his duties”. They won’t get what they want, not before Sunday at least. Do they even expect Rangers to take the action they are demanding?

It's three days before a game that could define the Ibrox club's domestic season. Short of asking Barry Ferguson to put down the microphone in an Ibrox suite and step in for a second stint as caretaker manager, there’s no one else to take the team. Gill, Martin’s second-in-command, has had one game in sole charge in his coaching career, following Paul Lambert’s sacking at Ipswich Town four years ago. He’s not a credible answer, meaning Rangers must persist.

Martin turns 40 on 4 January, the day after the scheduled second Old Firm league game of the season. He might make the first one but who, truly, can see him making it as far as the second meeting? If he does, it will be the kind of comeback for the ages his side failed so spectacularly to mount on a sorry night in Belgium last night.