Five managers in four years | Why do Rangers keep getting it wrong?

Another season. Another sacking of a Rangers manager.

Why do they keep getting it wrong and how can they avoid making same mistakes again?

Author | Mark Lee

With champagne dripping from his hair and a 2020-21 Scottish Premiership winner's medal around his neck, then manager Steven Gerrard urged Rangers to "fix the roof while the sun is shining".

Four years on, the roof remains in disrepair and the sunshine has long faded.

Since that title triumph, Rangers have gone through four managers: Gerrard, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Michael Beale and Philippe Clement, before reaching Martin.

Under Van Bronckhorst, the club came agonisingly close to European glory, losing the Europa League final on penalties before lifting the Scottish Cup days later. He departed with Rangers nine points adrift of Celtic the following season.

Beale and Clement both started brightly but their tenures quickly unravelled. Beale was dismissed with Rangers seven points behind Celtic; Clement’s side were 13 adrift when he left.

Martin departs Glasgow with Rangers nine points behind Celtic and 11 off leaders Hearts after only seven league games.

Before their 2012 financial collapse, Rangers had just 13 managers in more than a century. Over the past decade, they have gone through seven.

If the roof was leaking after that 2021 title win, it has now collapsed entirely.

The stats that demonstrate a miserable start to the season.

Russell Martin’s last game as Rangers boss away at Falkirk 

They support the view the 39-year-old is Rangers' worst ever manager.

Albeit over a 123-day period, the shortest tenure of any first-team boss at Ibrox, Martin's 29% win percentage is the lowest in the club's history.

Paul le Guen managed 52% and Pedro Caixinha's was 54%. Even Barry Ferguson's interim spell had a win rate of 40%. Graeme Murty's was 60% across his two caretaker stints. Clement (64%) and Beale (72%) are well clear.

As for Martin, it felt like each game came with a new low.

A 1-1 draw with Dundee in his second Premiership game marked the first time since 1989 that Rangers had failed to win their opening two league fixtures.

Losing to Hearts in September meant the Ibrox side had not won any of their first five league matches for the first time since 1978.

A 6-0 humiliation in Brugge, inflicting a 9-1 aggregate embarrassment, was a record-equalling European defeat.

And the 2-1 Europa League loss to Sturm Graz on Thursday ensured Rangers went a 23rd consecutive away game without a clean sheet. That is a new club record.

Even in victory there were serious red flags. Martin's side faced an eye-watering 73 shots across four matches while progressing past Panathinaikos and Viktoria Plzen in Champions League qualifying.

The underlying numbers told us it was not sustainable. And so it proved.

A poor night in the Europa League against Genk

In the Premiership, only two teams have scored fewer goals than Rangers this term. No team has had fewer clean sheets. They have only faced two shots fewer than St Mirren. They are on a negative goal difference.

Their expected goals (xG) rating of nine ranks them eighth, where they happen to be placed in the standings that really count.

Even with that evidence, Martin often said his team's deficiencies were down to mentality issues and not tactics.

In the backdrop, Rangers' board sanctioned a net spend of around £20m in the summer window. There have been suggestions that could mean the club spent close to £40m on incomings.

For context, that is an astronomical figure for a Scottish club.