It only required one press release and the introduction of a hipster manager to fire up Kris Boyd with enthusiasm for the 25/26 season.
His old club have watched Celtic win 13 out of the last 14 SPFL Premiership titles but when it comes to the close season the hoops are barely at the races.
Two summers ago Micky Beale was hailed for the brilliant recruitment of Sam Lammers, Cyriel Dessers and Danilo, a £15m forward line all on long term contracts.
With Beale using his charm and personality Jack Butland and Dujo Sterling signed on for massive wages as free agents.
What could possibly go wrong? Boyd had cheered Beale up the marble staircase from the moment that the then QPR boss mingled around the Loudon Tavern then high-fived current players in the Directors Box as the pressure mounted on Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
Beale lasted 43 matches, less than a year as managed despite presenting himself brilliantly in the eyes of folk like Boyd.
Celtic cantered to the title last season, they dropped down from fifth gear in January and still won the SPFL by 17 points. FULL SPFL Premiership table.
There is every reason to believe that Brendan Rodgers will be aiming to improve on last season’s points tally even though the team scored just short of three goals per match, scoring 112 goals across 38 matches.
Boyd’s team managed to drop points in 16 SPFL matches, they never won in four visits to St Mirren and Hibs, under two different managers they went seven matches at Ibrox without a victory. The did from Southampton isn’t going to resolve that in less than three months.
With the appointment of Martin, who gained five EPL points from 16 matches before his December sacking, it seems that the Ibrox garden is rosy again under their seventh permanent manager since reaching the top flight nine years ago!
Listen, it didn’t make good reading for Rangers domestically last year once again.
Just like Barry Ferguson Boyd often feels the need to start a sentence with listen since he knows most folk just laugh at what comes next from the Kilmarnock legend.
But we’ve seen it before. You go back to Dick Advocat’s team, they totally wiped the floor with Celtic. Martin O’Neill arrived and they totally wiped the floor with that Rangers team, which was a good Rangers team.
O’Neill inherited Henrik Larsson, Paul Lambert, Tom Boyd, Alan Stubbs, Jackie McNamara and Lubo Moravcik. Martin will have to work wonders with Cyriel Dessers, Ross McCausland, John Souttar, Jefte and Connor Barron- or hope that some mugs will pay a transfer fee and match their current wages. Unlikely.
I think that you look at Rangers’ problems, they didn’t come against Celtic last year, they were against everyone else.
So if Rangers can eradicate the results against everybody else and start to build momentum early, start winning the games against the rest, then the Old Firm games will take care of themselves.
That will require an improvement in the 14 matches where points were dropped last season. Quite an ask with a Champions League qualifier seven weeks away.
And Rangers have shown that they can cause Celtic problems in one-off games. But it’s finding that consistency, and that’s going to be the challenge for Russell Martin from now on.
He needs to find a level of consistency to go and beat the rest that allows Rangers to challenge towards the latter stage of the season against Celtic.
I’ve seen bigger point gaps than this being turned around. It’s not like in England where you might have one big team who’s struggling, but there are another three or four who are doing okay, and you need to overtake the three or four.
For Rangers, they only need to overtake Celtic for it to be a success. But, it’s going to be a lot harder than you think because Celtic, under Brendan Rodgers, have been a well-oiled machine now for a number of seasons.
Other than the Lockdown season Celtic are almost guaranteed to hit 90 points a season, on song it can be reaching towards 100 points or more.
They (Celtic) do look as if they will strengthen again in the summer. They’ve got an opportunity for Champions League football again.
I think that it’s a tough ask, but I think Rangers have got the right man, and he’s shown that he can improve players, he can improve teams, he can build a culture within the football club that will allow the club to flourish going forward.
So, for me, can that gap be closed? Of course it can. Rangers need to find that consistency against everyone else.
But also, we’ve all been part of squads where you know you’re going to be playing, you know you’re the first name on the team sheet, and that’s not good. It’s not healthy.
You need to have people pushing you every single day in training, and I’m sure if Russell Martin’s to add six or seven players to that, the starters from last year will probably become substitutes, and then it’s up to them to fight back to try and get on the team.
Unless six or seven players can be signed in the next six or seven weeks Martin will be going into the Champions League Second Round qualifiers with largely the same group of serial losers that finished last season trophy-less, with the SPFL title race over by the turn of the year.
Vaclav Cerny, Ianis Hagi, Tom Lawrence and Leon Balogun have left the pay-roll with Ben Davies, Rabbi Matondo, Jose Cifuentes and Kieran Dowell returning from loan spells.
🔵 “I firmly believe that every fucking bloke I’m asked to comment on is the right appointment for the Rangers Football Club and I think he’ll do really well”
Kris Boyd discusses Russell Martin’s appointment as the club’s new head coach 🔽 https://t.co/gXNP87oyEi
— Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) June 5, 2025
Boyd’s wishful thinking is ridiculous.
Getting six or seven players signed up and making a first team impact in August is a ridiculous expectation, getting an impact by Christmas would be a real sign of good management but after more than a decade of torture Ibrox fans won’t be giving any manager a season to settle in.
Especially not a vegan, Buddhist who is a member of the Green Party. Having a prayer mat and sandals in the Manager’s Office is something that none of Boyd’s former Ibrox manager’s would have tolerated.
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