Astonishingly, Rangers are 180 minutes from the Champions League and £40M | OneFootball

Russell Martin gets his Rangers side to the playoffs and a guaranteed £3M bonus for losing at that stage. No matter what, he’s a Bruges playoff from getting to the Champions League, and we have to admit we didn’t see the guy winning two ties in this competition with 1: his ability 2: the squad he’s built.

So we do commend getting 180 minutes away from the Champions League, and the £40M windfall which Rangers utterly need. Bruges will be no easy task though but the luck Rangers are carrying right now may just scrape it.

You’re waiting for the ‘but’, ‘but’ we’re not going to offer that.

We don’t like Martin, and we’ve been clear about that. ‘But’ he’s got us closer to the UCL than his Baldy predecessor did and with a much worse squad. True, Plzen were very poor over the two legs even if Rangers were dire in Czechia, but that doesn’t matter.

Martin is two legs away from the Promised Land and that’s worth almost £50M.

That said, his win record is absolutely honking, his stats disgraceful, and even his players do not know what his plan is. John Souttar tonight said his manager wanted each player to hold onto the ball for as long as possible. This makes no sense and is at odds with every message the boss has previously offered.

This is the mixed messages players don’t understand – there’s also a huge nod to Jack Butland whose agility prevented shipping more goals.

Domestically Martin doesn’t have a clue, that’s abundantly clear. Two draws against bread and butter sides are the worst start for Rangers since 89. We won’t win the league with this manager.

And yet here we are close to the UCL league phase proper. As we said before, Steven Gerrard built a European DNA in this team and no matter who the boss is the club frequently punches. Russell Martin gets his Rangers side to the playoffs!

What now for Russell Martin and the latest Rangers Rollercoaster?

Beats us.

We look forward to another honking domestic weekend with Alloa the visitors in the cup.

It’s fun being a Bear these days…