Hearts win, fury erupts, and a one-word answer
Hearts hadn’t won at Ibrox in 11 years. They walked out with a 2-0 victory, the league lead, and a soundtrack of open revolt ringing around Govan. The focal point was Russell Martin. Asked point-blank after the match if he would resign, the Rangers manager said one word: “No.”
The afternoon began with a flashpoint. Nine minutes in, home supporters chanted the name of Nicolas Raskin, the popular Belgian midfielder who was left out amid a dispute with the manager. That chant never really faded. Abuse followed Martin for most of the 90 minutes, layered over by the away end and then parts of the home crowd combining for “you’re getting sacked in the morning.”
On the pitch, Hearts were far more clinical. Lawrence Shankland struck first in the 22nd minute after a ragged defensive sequence. He sealed it late, reacting fastest to bury the rebound when his 82nd-minute penalty was saved by Jack Butland. Two goals, three points, and a statement win away to a heavyweight.
Martin fronted up afterward. He didn’t take shots at the stands. “Supporters are entitled to their opinions,” he said, and he wasn’t about to police how they voiced them. Pressed again on the noise around his job, he added: “I don’t think many of them wanted me here in the first place.” A defiant stance, but the context is brutal.
The league table underlines it. Five matches gone, four draws, one defeat, and not a single win. It’s Rangers’ worst start to a top-flight season in 47 years, and it leaves the club marooned in 10th when they’re built to challenge for the title. Hearts, by contrast, sit top.
Selection didn’t help cool tempers. The Raskin call, already contentious, became a symbol for a team that looks unsure of itself. Martin pointed to the churn in the squad—new signings still finding their feet—but that message cuts little ice when performances dip week to week instead of trending up.
All the familiar symptoms were there: hesitancy in the first phase, cheap turnovers under pressure, gaps in front of the back line, and bluntness in the final third. Hearts didn’t need a dozen chances. They were organized without the ball, punched hard when space opened, and leaned on Shankland’s instinct. Butland’s penalty save should have been a lifeline; it only deepened the sense of drift when the rebound landed at the same striker’s boots.
A defiant manager, a divided Ibrox, and what has to change now
Martin’s stance is clear. He’s not stepping aside. That puts the spotlight on the board and the dressing room. Do they ride out the storm and give him time to bed in his ideas and his recruits, or do they move before the season’s rhythm hardens into something tougher to fix?
There’s also the human part. Ibrox demands edge and certainty. Right now, the team looks neither. Players can feel that static through every sideways pass. When your own support is counting down to a sacking before full-time, confidence doesn’t slip—it dives.
The Raskin situation needs a resolution, fast. When a popular midfielder becomes a proxy for the wider anger, it warps everything: training intensity, selection trust, even how substitutions are received. Either draw a line through the dispute and fold him back in, or explain clearly and consistently why that isn’t happening. Silence creates its own story, and the stands will write it for you.
On the pitch, the fixes are not complicated to describe, even if they’re hard to pull off under pressure:
- Pick a spine and stick to it. A settled goalkeeper-back line-midfield axis can stabilize the basics.
- Protect the space in front of the center-backs. A tighter screen reduces cheap entries and panic defending.
- Speed up the first pass forward. Slow circulation invites pressure; one brave ball splits it.
- Define roles in the final third. Who attacks the near post, who pulls wide, who arrives late—clarity turns half-chances into goals.
- Win the second balls. It’s not glamorous, but it’s where momentum lives in tight home matches.
Communication matters as much as tactics. Martin acknowledged the fans’ right to vent, which was the right move. The next step is connecting process to outcome: show, in plain terms, what’s changing this week and how it should look on the pitch. Supporters rarely demand perfection; they demand direction.
Hearts deserve their flowers. They weathered the occasion, trusted their structure, and leaned on a forward who turns moments into points. Shankland’s brace will headline, but the platform behind him—compact lines, smart pressure triggers—made Rangers look hurried in the areas that usually calm a home crowd down.
The scale of the moment wasn’t just the scoreline. It was the symbolism. Hearts took a place that normally intimidates and made it feel very ordinary. The home end, which can flip from roaring to restless in minutes, never felt fully onside. You could see it in the body language: passes turned safe, overlaps hesitated, shots delayed. Teams smell that.
Then there’s the record book. Going five league games without a win is a stat that lingers, especially for a club built to chase trophies. Forty-seven years since a start this rough isn’t trivia—it’s a measure of how far off the pace the opening weeks have been.
Martin’s argument about bedding-in time has some fairness. Many new signings need rhythm and relationships. But elite clubs have to blend on the fly. That’s the job. The only way to buy time is to harvest points while you build. Draws can feel like progress for a while, until the table turns the lights on and you see where you are.
As for the chant that echoed longest—“you’re getting sacked in the morning”—that line rarely comes from nowhere. It comes from months of unease, from transfers that haven’t clicked yet, from a style that hasn’t convinced, and from the gap between what fans see and what they were sold. Turning that down means changing the picture quickly, not just the words around it.
Here’s the blunt summary: Rangers are winless in five, the stadium is on edge, and the manager is digging in. Hearts just ended an 11-year wait at Ibrox and went top doing it. The next match won’t be a routine fixture; it will be a referendum on whether the team is listening, and whether the message is getting through.