49ers can axe Martin by hiring Rangers their own version of Brendan Rodgers

Could we be looking at the shortest permanent managerial tenure at Ibrox in Glasgow Rangers’ 153-year history?

Not including caretakers, Pedro Caixinha is the shortest-serving Rangers manager of all-time, for now, overseeing 26 matches in 2017, but could Russell Martin smash that record?

Well, things have not gone very well for Martin in his 11 matches in charge of the Gers, ignominiously dumped out of Champions League qualifying by Club Brugge, demolished 9-1 on aggregate, while he is yet to win a Premiership fixture, drawing all four so far.

Martin’s 26th match would be a Europa League home game against Braga on 27 November, but many are forecasting he’ll be long gone by then, so could 49ers Enterprises turn to an experienced Premier League manager instead?

What is going wrong for Martin at Rangers?

Back on 23 February, Philippe Clement was sacked, following a 2-0 home defeat at the hands of St Mirren.

Barry Ferguson took caretaker charge for the remainder of last season, actually producing some exceptional results, during which time 49ers Enterprises completed their takeover of the club.

Thus, after a thorough recruitment process, Martin was appointed 102 days on from Clement’s dismissal and, well, supporters were pretty underwhelmed.

Speaking on the Guardian Football Weekly podcast, Ewan Murray asserted that never before has a managerial appointment been so instantaneously “doomed” from day one as this, noting that Rangers fans never wanted Martin in the first place, and he has certainly not won them over.

The Gers have failed to win any of their first four league outings for the first time since 1983, going on to finish fourth back then, lucky to salvage draws at St Mirren and Motherwell, outplayed by both for long periods.

Also, the aforementioned 9-1 annihilation at the hands of Club Brugge is the Light Blues’ heaviest aggregate European defeat since a 12-4 loss to Eintracht Frankfurt in the European Cup semi-finals 65 years ago.

After the international break, Rangers welcome both Hearts and then Hibs to Ibrox, the latter a League Cup quarter-final, before commencing their Europa League campaign against Genk in Govan, but, should results continue to deteriorate and Martin’s position become untenable, who should the 49ers turn to?

Rangers’ ideal Russell Martin replacement

When looking at the current out-of-work managers, some names immediately leap off the page.

José Mourinho, Erik ten Hag, Marco Rose, Sérgio Conceição, Steven Gerrard, even Ange Postecoglou (could you imagine?), but surely the most sensible appointment for Rangers, given their current predicament, would be Sean Dyche.

The 54-year-old was sacked by Everton in January, but undeniably did a good job on Merseyside, keeping the Toffees in the Premier League during a period of austerity at Goodison, with the Blues finishing 17th and then 15th with a very poor squad.

Dyche is most well known for his decade as Burnley boss before that, taking charge of 425 games, the third most of any manager in Clarets’ history, behind only Harry Potts (1958-70) and John Haworth (1910-24).

Under Dyche, Burnley twice won promotion from the EFL Championship, enjoying six successive seasons in the Premier League, their longest continuous period in the top division since the early-70s, most notably finishing seventh in 2018, thereby qualifying for Europe for the first time since 1966.

The Clarets were known for being defensively organised and tough to beat, with Dyche getting the best out of his players, elevating them to become better than they ever believed possible. He did so on a shoestring budget too, much like current Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers did with Swansea City.

Well, these are all qualities one cannot say about the current Rangers team, who are all over the place at the back, with Max Aarons and Nasser Djiga’s red cards against Brugge and Dundee respectively epitomising this chaotic approach.

Dyche’s Premier League record, when compared to Martin’s, tells the story.

As the table documents, Dyche is exponentially more experienced than Martin at Premier League level so, while the latter does only offer a small sample size, the way his Southampton team were going, they would’ve conceded 747 goals had he reached 332 matches; that’s 280 more than Dyche.

The main issue for Rangers right now is that, frankly, they have a poor squad, but even their competent players like John Souttar, who was excellent for Scotland in Denmark on Friday night, are not suited to Martin’s style of play.

Thus, what the Gers need right now is a pragmatist, not a dogmatic idealist who sticks to their principles at all costs.

So, if the Light Blues are going to fight for silverware domestically and make a deep run in the Europa League, they need a manager who can get the best out of players, and Dyche appears perfectly suited to that role.