It feels like Rangers odds are stacking up against Russell Martin and he might be on a hiding to nothing – Keith Jackson

He would neither wish for nor expect to receive anyone’s sympathy at this exciting, fledgling point in his Rangers career.

Why would he?

Russell Martin is settling into the very job which he was coveting since the final weeks of last season. He has shiny new American owners to subsidise his summer spending plans and pretty much a blank canvas on which to go about his work.

Russell intends not only to overhaul the playing squad he inherited when he became Philippe Clement’s permanent successor but also to redesign the manner and style in which his team goes about its business.

He wants to create something modern and contemporary which is exactly what Rangers have been waiting for ever since they lost Walter Smith as manager and dropped down the divisions to begin the one journey they never planned for.

Granted, there were few or little signs of this transformation in yesterday’s first half at Ibrox as Rangers suffered a bit of a clubbing from Brugge.

If truth be told Martin could hardly have got off to a more inauspicious start watching his team fall two goals behind the Belgians in the opening 12 minutes.

But accidents happen at this stage in the summer - and Rangers improved significantly after the half time interval to claim a 2-2 draw - so the new boss will have to get over the awkwardness of a difficult first day in the office and focus on the enormity of the task in hand.

In his own mind Martin has probably reached the conclusion that he is very fortunate to be arriving back on Glasgow’s south side at this particular moment in time, when the club feels in so much of a better place than it has done for more than a decade.

All of this and more is true.

And yet somehow it’s impossible not to feel as if the odds are