It seems Keith Jackson has changed his tune when it comes to his opinion on Russell Martin.
A couple of weeks ago, he was stating categorically that he would not be given any time to get things right at Ibrox.
In his article in the Record today, he is calling for patience amongst the Ibrox support.
One wonders if the Americans instructed someone from Ibrox to call him to instruct him on how to set the narrative.
A narrative which is becoming clear and clearer with each passing day.
A narrative that is going to be austere, to say the least.
If anybody thought that it wasn’t going to be a case of free transfers and loan deals this summer, I’d say think again.
The first two signings in the door are a free transfer from League One, and a loan deal for a player who featured 3 times for Bournemouth last season.
If that doesn’t quell any notion of megabucks spending, then I don’t know what will.
This is why Keith Jackson is calling for patience.
Of course, Celtic were desperate to sign Kwame Poku too, but were beaten to it by the Ibrox side.
Missed out big time there, didn’t we?
When Peter fry tells you a kid is going to be a world beater, then you listen.
And it looks we didn’t, and they did.
Nonetheless, Keith Jackson still thinks that the Ibrox club are going to rinse and repeat what they do every summer.
And that effectively, it’s all starting to feel a bit too much like it always tends to do at this time of year.
Did it ever occur to him that the Americans are taking on the attitude of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?
Since this is Andrew Cavenagh’s first time running a football club?
Or in more understandable language, “this club is so broke, we can’t fix”?
Well, not yet anyway.
But we need patience in the process of fixing it.
Maybe about 25 years or more of patience?
Well, one would think that Keith was giving a party political broadcast for the Americans with these opening lines to his article:
There’s something of an anomaly about the situation R*****s and their supporters find themselves faced with this summer.
The need for patience has never felt quite so warranted or so well earned as it does right now. And yet the time for understanding and for trusting in the process may already be running short.
Right, let me get this straight.
The situation the Ibrox supporters find themselves in is something of an anomaly?
An anomaly being something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected.
Yet the whole premise of this Keith Jackson article is that not much is changing this summer, and that they seem to be rinsing and repeating what they do every summer?
Go figure.
That doesn’t sound very anomalous to me.
As for the need for patience never feeling quite so warranted?
Well, if you wanted something to be anomalous at Ibrox, patience would fit the bill.
That’s for sure!
But Keith says patience and trust is in short supply at Ibrox?
Really?
Well, the Ibrox fans were quite happy to entrust their club to an American consortium they know the square root of f*** all about.
Which points to the fact they’d trust anyone with their club, as long as they ensured eternal domination over Celtic.
Because that’s the eternal quest, isn’t it?
To a degree, the Ibrox club reminds you of Wile E. Coyote, with Celtic being the Roadrunner.
For those of you who of a younger generation, look it up.
If you watch three of those 5 minute cartoons, you’ll get it pretty quickly.
It’s the perfect metaphor for the Ibrox club.
Wile E. Coyote never catches the Roadrunner.
But he never gives up on his eternal quest to try and capture him.
Despite being blown to smithereens with unerring regularity, flattened, crushed by rocks, crashing into cliffs with rockets up his ass, and on, and on, and on.
You’ve got to admire his tenacity, but you can’t help but laugh your ass off at it.
The Roadrunner supplied me with endless laughs when I was a kid, the same as the Ibrox club has done for me throughout adulthood.
I’ll never deny that during the 90’s, we felt like Wile E. Coyote when it came to catching them.
But then Elmer Fudd (Fergus McCann) came and showed us how to do it.
I’m showing my age now, between my trips down memory lane, and my senile ramblings.
Back to the subject at hand.
Keith Jackson believes that Russell Martin will have to become part magician, part miracle worker, to achieve anything next season.
I personally believe he’ll be starting the season with one hand tied behind his back.
They are definitely going to flog anything that think is worth money.
Or asset strip, as I pointed out in yesterday’s article.
Martin will then be left to cobble together a squad from the remaining players.
Next season is not going to be about stopping Celtic.
It’s going to be about seeing how far they can push things to get that club on an even keel.
As Jackson winds up his article, he is at pains to stress how much “patience” Russell Martin will need:
Patience and time are what Martin needs most of all as he pieces this latest rebuild together. But he’s an intelligent man and a deep thinker who will also be smart enough to realise the pair of them make the most unlikely bedfellows in this part of the world.
If he wanted to pocket an easier wage packet then he would have chosen a career at Leicester City. Instead, Martin chose life in Scottish football.
And, for that reason alone, he deserves every last bit of patience and time an exhausted Rangers support can find within itself to afford him.
He might deserve every last bit of patience and time the Ibrox support can afford.
But he’s not going to getting.
If another flaccid campaign of feeble under-achievement looms, then they’ll want him gone by this time next year.
Whether the Americans will want him gone remains to be seen.
But one thing is for sure, time and patience are not on his side.
The pursuit of Celtic is a deadly thing.
It has been the death of many an Ibrox manager.
I don’t see it changing next season.
If they just gave up the chase for a while, then things might change.
Then again, Wile E. Coyote wouldn’t give up the chase for the Roadrunner.
See where that got him?
