An audience with Sir Alex Ferguson at the Rangers training ground does Russell Martin no harm at all. Scotland’s managerial greats have always been generous with their wisdom and few shared it more freely than the Guru of Glenbuck.
There’s an old clip on YouTube, roughly 20 seconds long. It’s 1973 and, holding court in the Liverpool trophy room after a league and UEFA Cup double Bill Shankly is preaching the gospel of the Anfield Boot Room
“Europe has been a great thing for Liverpool, a great thing for the country,” he says in a voice like Ayrshire gravel. “But this,” he adds with a nod towards the old English First Division trophy, “is our bread and butter. This is the one that we want.”
A Rangers manager doesn’t have the luxury of listing his priorities like he’s picking a goal of the month on Match of the Day. He’s expected to apply the pedal to the metal, every minute of every game.
During Saturday’s pre-season friendly against Middlesbrough Martin was sent to the stand for mouthing off at referee John Beaton and that’s the kind of passion supporters expect to see every game, starting with Wednesday’s Champions League qualifier against Panathinaikos
Some, like Ally McCoist, think Europe doesn’t matter so much this season. That it’s secondary to the task of ending Celtic’s stranglehold in Scotland. While he’s right, holding players back for Motherwell on Saturday isn’t really an option. Failure to protect a two-goal lead in the second leg Athens would bring instant, crushing judgement. It’s the nature of the beast.
For Andrew Cavenagh and the 49ers investment group the £40 million on offer for reaching the group stages would fast-track their efforts to stabilise and rebuild and re-energise the club. Whether eight group games against the best teams in Europe is what Martin and his undercooked team really need in season one is a different matter.
A smart man, the former Scotland defender must have noticed that all those Thursday night thrillers did nothing at all for the job prospects of the men who held the job before him. Beating Real Betis and Malmo and Nice didn’t count for much when they started losing games to Aberdeen, Motherwell or Queen’s Park. Fat lot of good European football did them then.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst led the club to a Europa League final and lost a penalty shoot out in a sudden-death lottery in the heat of Seville. Even that couldn’t save him when his team were thumped 4-0 at Parkhead, slipped behind [[Celtic]] and endured one of the worst [[Champions League]] campaigns in history.
Michael Beale beat Servette in a Champions League qualifier then sustained a thrashing in Eindhoven. His last European game in charge was a 1-0 win over Real Betis two weeks after he’d lost to Celtic at home. That, you suspect, was a bigger issue than any of the games he oversaw in UEFA competition.
Next up was Big Phil Clement. Time and again his side pressed high and hit teams fast on the counter in the [[Europa League]]. They won in Malmo and thrashed Nice in the South of France. They thumped FCSB and pulled off a big result in Greece against an Olympiacos who left current opponents Panathinaikos trailing in the league. They drew with a star-studded Tottenham side which went on to lift the trophy. When his side fell into a habit of travelling home and dropping points to the likes of [[Aberdeen]], Dundee United or Hibs he was done for as well.
Ask the fallen trio now and they’d tell you that Europe was nice, but didn’t wash the dishes. The only thing that does that is Callum McGregor blubbing on the Hampden pitch after another defeat in a cup final or red, white and blue ribbons wrapped around the league trophy.
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Obligingly, Celtic seem to be doing all they can to help with that. The Parkhead hierarchy are going the extra mile to create a competitive title race next season.
Controlling shareholder Dermot Desmond has yet to persuade Brendan Rodgers to hang around beyond the end of his contract next summer.
They insist on irritating other clubs by making low-ball offers for their players while commanding top dollar for their own.
And a midweek 5-1 defeat to Ajax showed that the depth and quality of the squad hasn’t improved markedly since they finished the Scottish Cup final with Johnny Kenny up front and Greg Taylor in midfield.
They’ll spend a few quid eventually, because the alternative is fans in the car park bearing pitch forks. In the here and now the champions are playing Russian roulette with the patience of both their own manager and their supporters.
Rodgers fired the first warning shot across the bows of his own directors in Como the other night.
“If your ambition is to really progress and push forward, then we need to improve the squad,” he cautioned.
There and then it felt like someone had fired up the flux capacitor on the DeLorean and propelled the club back to the Terminado summer of 2018.
For Rangers and Russell Martin all of this represents a rare window of opportunity. A chance to lay down a marker in the first season.
You know it’s autumn in Scotland when the leaves tumble from the trees and the Ibrox club dispense with another manager.
By common consent the former Scotland defender needs the time to avoid another rinse-and-repeat episode. In the real world, the only way he gets that time is if he gives the team a style and an identity and finds a way to break down the low block of teams with lesser budgets while adding to the angst taking root across the city.
In his footballing nirvana Martin would gain the upper hand in Scotland and win a few games in Europe as well.
That’s a big ask for a new manager working with new owners, a new sporting director and a new team. And, if there’s a sacrifice to be made at some point then, in the interests of self preservation, he should take a leaf out of the Bill Shankly management manual and focus on the bread and butter. It’s how he keeps his job.
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