This Rangers side can't possibly be ready for Europe, writes GARY KEOWN... and Russell Martin is in big danger of his own Artmedia moment

For years, that iconic badge has been emblazoned proudly on the wall of the main stand at Ibrox. A golden lion on a royal blue background with the word ‘Ready’ underneath — in big, bold capital letters.

If one club looks the absolute opposite of its motto right now, though, it’s Rangers. We all know the summer takeover by chairman Andrew Cavenagh and his US consortium ate up a lot of time and energy. We know their plan is one based on long-term investment rather than short-term splurges.

Russell Martin only stepped into the manager’s job on June 5 and is still getting his feet under the table while trying to change a culture, change a style of play and change the vibe around a dressing-room that sounds like it contained the decibel levels of a mausoleum.

It’s going to take Rangers a while to get to where they want to be. However, the lack of decent-quality warm-up games and apparent shortage of viable options up front, in particular, suggest they are light years away from being ready to hit the mark against Panathinaikos in the Champions League qualifiers on Tuesday night.

Given how a perplexing build-up has worked out, it’s impossible to see how they will be anything other than undercooked for a two-legged showdown against the Greeks, who have squeezed in a respectable number of friendlies in preparation.

Right now, rather than emerging emboldened by a statement victory, Martin looks in serious danger of going through his own Artmedia moment.

Former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan was in the headlines this week after talking about how he feels current Parkhead boss Brendan Rodgers might call it a day at the end of the season. He might well be back in the spotlight at the end of next week, offering Martin advice on how you piece your shattered life back together after seeing your competitive Old Firm debut in Europe go from being a baptism of fire to a journey through the depths of Hades.

There are obvious differences between Strachan’s first game as Celtic manager — that infamous five-goal thrashing from Artmedia Bratislava in July 2006 — and Martin’s competitive debut in the hot-seat at Ibrox.

In the new Rangers manager’s favour, the first leg against Panathinaikos is at home, but that’s pretty much the only favourable comparison.

The away leg in Athens a week on Wednesday has the potential to be a long, long night of running the gauntlet. Back when Strachan took over at Parkhead, Celtic had a strong squad. They had only just been pipped to the league title on the final day of the previous season.

Russell Martin walked into a blast zone. As well as regime change at the top of the club, the dressing-room needed — and still needs — gutted.

Billy Dodds, a noble man whose analysis of the game is based on balance rather than sensationalism, said it best when reflecting on his short spell as first-team coach under interim manager Barry Ferguson towards the end of last season’s misadventures.

He described too many of the players Ferguson inherited as ‘weak’ and lacking the ‘necessary mental strength’. His view was that 70 per-cent of the squad didn’t have the minerals to be at Ibrox. It was eye-watering stuff.

If Strachan could finish up on the wrong end of a whipping in Europe with established figures such as Neil Lennon, Chris Sutton, John Hartson and Stilian Petrov in his team, almost anything could happen when Martin kicks off his time in Glasgow with a squad he is still trying desperately to pull together on the hoof.

Those of us who were in Slovakia that night for Strachan’s grand curtain-raiser will never forget it. It was going OK, from memory, until about 20 minutes in when Sutton banged into Lennon and ended up being taken off with a broken cheekbone.

Artmedia snatched one before half-time and then, after the break, the roof, rafters and the entire kit and caboodle caved in. Strachan, a ray of sunshine at pre-season camp in Burnham Beeches, taking his players out to Rod Stewart’s gaff for a kickabout, cut a haunted figure afterwards. He called it the worst night of his footballing life. It was nuts.

Of course, it didn’t stop him going on to become a successful Celtic manager. And even if this tie against Panathinaikos ends in an expected defeat over two games, it need not define Martin’s stay in Glasgow. He needs time to right the wrongs of many, many years of terrible recruitment. 

Although some kind of European group football is needed for financial purposes, it is highly unlikely this Rangers squad will make it to the Champions League proper anyway. The Premiership should be his primary focus this term.

However, that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be scrutiny of why Rangers appear so poorly prepared for the first game of the campaign.

Yes, Martin didn’t come in until the start of last month and it’s not unreasonable that those above him in the pecking order wanted to wait until the head coach was in place before finalising summer plans.

However, sporting director Kevin Thelwell was appointed at the end of April and CEO Patrick Stewart has been in situ for a while. Couldn’t they have employed a bit of forward thinking and set up more than just one Ibrox friendly against Club Brugge?

They’ve always known the dates of these Champions League qualifiers. It just feels more could have been put in the diary than that visit of the Belgians and then some training-ground bounce games against Barnsley and lower-league Scottish opposition before a visit of Middlesbrough to Govan next Saturday. 

It’s hard to judge what’s been going on in pre-season. The 2-2 draw with Brugge came incredibly early and was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde affair with one awful 45 minutes and one half-decent one. Other than that, evidence is scant.

One thing’s for sure. The goals lost against Brugge and in that 1-1 draw with Barnsley at St George’s Park were absolutely shocking. Serious work needs done on the backline and, although the idea of Joe Rothwell shoring up midfield and allowing Mohamed Diomande and Nico Raskin to get forward sounds fine, up front looks a mess.

Cyriel Dessers looked like going to AEK Athens, but that one’s gone a bit cold. Answers on a postcard over why Hamza Igamane went missing after an initial problem with his visa and endless rumours over a move to France. Both finally reappeared for 45 minutes in a 2-0 bounce game win over Hamilton yesterday, but cannot be match fit.

It doesn't look like either can possibly start against Panathinaikos. That means it’s Danilo in the box-seat, a bit-part player during last term’s stumbles from one disaster to another.

People need sold to trim down the squad and bring in more cash for a new, proper centre-forward and extra attacking reinforcements, but it hasn’t happened so far. That’s on Thelwell too.

The side is painfully short on width and it’s no shock to hear Djeidi Gassama was signed too late to be ready to start. With Thelo Aasgaard injured, it’s anyone’s guess who’ll play either side of Danilo.

There are other red flags too, of course. Martin still talks about the squad being painfully quiet, although he reports it’s getting better as he brings in his own guys. It’s hard to know what to make of his senior leadership group consisting of James Tavernier, Jack Butland, John Souttar and, shock of all shocks, Kieran Dowell.

If you’d asked most Rangers fans in May, they’d have predicted at least three — maybe all four — of those guys would have been out of the first-team picture this term. Instead, for the moment at least, they are steering the dressing-room — most probably over the edge of the cliff as far as the Champions League goes.

That won’t be the end of the world, of course, but you just feel Rangers should be in better shape to compete than this.

Rodgers looks to be playing a dangerous game at Celtic 

Labelling guys brought in for buttons as club investments not ready for the first-team or better punted out on loan raises the odd eyebrow here and there.

Spending £1.3million on a striker and immediately stating that you still need more up front because you need to have a proper look at him comes with the clang of ever-loudening alarm bells.

Those were the words of Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers in midweek following the arrival of Shin Yamada from Kawasaki Frontale and they just add to the suspicion that the transfer window isn’t quite shaping up the way he anticipated after the January disappointment of seeing Kyogo Furuhashi sold before a European knockout clash with Bayern Munich and not replaced.

Yes, there’s still a month to go until the club’s all-important Champions League play-off. However, the league campaign kicks off in a fortnight for the title-holders and no one can say Celtic look stronger now than they did six months ago.

Rodgers is a smart bloke who weighs up the weight of his words. It is not a work of the imagination that he is keeping a certain distance between himself and a sizeable number of the players who have arrived so far.

What’s more, we already have evidence that the Parkhead manager can be stubborn when it comes to dealing with players he isn’t sure about. Look at his first summer back at Celtic Park.

He nodded along at a press conference about working with whoever the club wanted to sign, but Marco Tilio, Gustaf Lagerbielke, Odin Thiago Holm, Maik Nawrocki and all the rest of them didn’t see a heck of a lot of action when the actual campaign got under way.

Initially, it felt like refusing to commit to the club beyond this season, using it as a form of leverage, might work in Rodgers’ favour as he looked to get the board to invest heavily on the ‘two or three high-quality additions’ he has stated very publicly that he needs.

Right now, though, you start to wonder if those on high have decided they aren’t ready to commit to the several big-money signings the manager wants if he isn’t prepared to tell them what he’s doing as his contract slowly winds down.

Either way, it’s becoming an ever-greater issue. What requires consideration, too, is that more and more voices are now beginning to express their own views over what the future holds for Rodgers as things stand. It’s beginning to dominate the narrative with regard to the Parkhead outfit.

Former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan thinks the Brodge might now be away at the end of the season when his contract expires, and it’s easy to see where he’s coming from.

Kieran Tierney’s first media conference also ended up being centred on how he feels Rodgers is going to deal with the speculation surrounding his future.

Celtic should have more than enough to win the title this season against a Rangers side in a major rebuilding phase, but this torpor in the transfer market coupled with a lack of clarity over Rodgers’ long-term plans is now very, very close to becoming a most unhelpful diversion.