Hearts must be enjoying this. Laughing up their sleeves at the bin fires engulfing three of their biggest rivals in acrid black smoke. This time last year the Tynecastle outfit were the butt of the jokes. They drew against Rangers on the opening day of the season before losing eight games on the bounce. Europe felt more like a burden than a blessing. The first anniversary of Steven Naismith’s sacking falls next weekend. On pulling the trigger, chief executive Andrew McKinlay claimed there was ‘little evidence of any potential upturn in fortunes.’ There’s evidence now alright. There was a point on Saturday when the Hearts travelling support, revelling in their first Ibrox win since 2014, taunted Russell Martin with chants of ‘sacked in the morning’. They had barely made it through the first chorus when the Rangers support joined in. Martin must have known, there and then, he was done for. No wins in five league games leaves a fragile, clueless, frightened team languishing tenth in the league. For a net spend of £20 million the return – a single win against Alloa – has been appalling. Instead of the Old Firm title race Rangers fans hoped for, all there is now is a race to the exits between Martin and his Celtic rival Brendan Rodgers. One minute the former Scotland defender is throwing his players under a Routemaster to save himself. Next minute Rodgers comes roaring back with an incendiary ‘sack me if you dare’ message to the Parkhead board. Martin responded by dropping his best player Nico Raskin, losing 2-0 to Hearts and finishing his 100th day as Rangers boss wondering if he’d see another one. When a former Rangers PR man threw the press conference doors open to fan media he reflected the rapid change in the media landscape. If he thought the move would generate a succession of softball questions from friendly faces he failed to factor in times like these, when the post-match interrogations feel like a firing squad lining up to take aim at a sitting duck. Martin now admits that his team looks ‘scared’. At the very point when Rangers should be taking advantage of some iffy displays on the other side of Glasgow they don’t look up to it. Frozen by nerves and anxiety, the manager’s determination to make an example of Belgian international midfielder Raskin only increased the level of vitriol pouring down from the stands. The new owner must have heard the boos on the 18th hole of his Philadelphia golf course and you’d pay good money to know what Andrew Cavenagh and the 49ers Investment Group are thinking now. Even if they accept that hiring Martin was a mis-step, absentee landlords have no difficulty dodging the flak and the shrapnel when they’re 3000 miles away. They might even view the clamour to sack a new manager as absurdly premature. In any other football environment they’d have a point. Glasgow is a landscape where patience is a weakness rather than a virtue. Those Europa League ticket packages won’t sell themselves and a robust Hearts team are unlikely to fold like a pack of cards as Aberdeen did last season. So long as Martin is in charge Rangers face a struggle for second, never mind first. Even Bloom’s data algorithm couldn’t have seen that coming this soon. A Rangers crisis would normally have Celtic fans swinging from the chandeliers. In a twist to the usual rules of engagement both sets of supporters are united, for once, by disgruntlement. The Parkhead board must have hoped that fan protests over a dismal transfer window would amount to a bit of noise, a banner or two and a period of détente followed by a comfortable win in Kilmarnock. Some hope. Manager Brendan Rodgers is now so closely aligned with a mutinous fanbase, he should have pitched up at Rugby Park 12 minutes late. While he stopped short of identifying the individual he suspects of briefing against him in a national newspaper, he expressed his respect for controlling shareholder Dermot Desmond and praised ‘good guys’ Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay while conspicuously omitting the club chairman.The Deep Throat of Dalmarnock, whoever he is, made a monumental misjudgement. Far from tilting the axis back in the board’s direction, the wicked whispers accusing the manager of engineering his own exit backfired. Desmond could take some of the toxicity out of the situation by siding with his manager and handing him a three-year contract. While Rodgers claims to be open to that idea he must know that a cautious, conservative board are too long in the tooth, too set in their ways to change their transfer strategy now. The ace negotiators who think the best deals are done in the final days of the window would still be there, selling their best players without adequate replacements, low balling clubs with £1.5 million offers and signing two left wingers in the final days of the window in the hope that one of them might be able fill a hole on the right. While Sebastian Tounekti looks a player it’s hard to say the same, yet, of Michel-Ange Balikwisha. A team which used to rip opponents to bits now gives off 1994 vibes. Their first goal in 236 minutes came from Daizen Maeda and, when a thumping header from David Watson pulled Kilmarnock level, Stuart Kettlewell’s team looked more likely to win it. VAR handed Celtic a last-ditch penalty for one of those handball calls almost no one agrees on. Kelechi Iheanacho swept a contentious penalty into the net for a victory more difficult than it might have been if they’d spent a little more of that £80m burning a hole in the bank. Still, when free agents are scoring late winners, why bother? It’s not just Glasgow where the smell of cordite lingers in the air. Aberdeen’s Jimmy Thelin has won five of his last 31 league games, losing 18. His team have failed to score in their opening four games in the Premiership, dropping points at home to the two teams promoted this summer. While the Pittodrie board would prefer to give the Swede three years to turn things around they’ve gone the extra mile to back their manager. And, so far, the only reward is relegation form. It’s one of the oddities of Scottish football book that when Aberdeen or Hearts hit hard times the other seems to thrive. Tony Bloom has boldly promised to break up the Old Firm duopoly and, as the data kings of Scottish football ride high in the league after a ray of Ibrox sunshine, unrest and discontent grips Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen.The schadenfreude inside Tynecastle must be delicious.
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