Roy Keane raises ‘sad’ Rangers example after what’s happened at English club
Rangers are already onto their third permanent manager of 2025 after hiring Danny Rohl earlier this week.
Rohl’s Rangers face Brann in the Europa League on Thursday in the German’s first game in charge of the Gers.
Former Sheffield Wednesday manager Rohl replaces Russell Martin, who was was sacked by Rangers earlier this month with a truly abysmal record.
Martin himself only replaced Philippe Clement in the summer, with his Belgian predecessor being given his marching orders in February.
It is the brutal reality of football that managers come and go, and is something Roy Keane admits he finds “sad”.
Roy Keane likens Ange Postecoglou situation to Russell Martin at Rangers
Martin was hounded out by Rangers fans, who never really took to him from the off and saw absolutely nothing to make them change their minds.
Patrick Stewart and Kevin Thelwell publicly supported Martin, but ultimately even they saw enough was enough before the October international break.
Keane is not alone in comparing Martin’s situation at Rangers to that of Ange Postecoglou at Nottingham Forest, with the ex-Celtic boss lasting even less time at the City Ground.
Speaking on Thursday’s episode of The Overlap, Keane said of Postecoglou’s sacking: “We’re on about momentum… Ange went into a job where the fans weren’t having him.
“We saw it with Martin at Rangers. You’ve got to win games from the start, and if you don’t get results… it’s sad. You need that momentum in the first month or two.”
As highlighted by the Sofascore graphic above, Postecoglou lost 75 per cent of his eight Forest matches, compared to a 35 per cent loss rate for Martin at Rangers.
And as Keane implies, football is a results business and quite frankly the results under Martin were nowhere near what is expected from a Rangers manager.
Russell Martin’s Rangers record makes for horrible reading
Martin was sacked earlier this month having managed just 17 Rangers matches, winning only five of those.
That saw Martin bow out with a win percentage of 29.41, which makes him statistically the worst manager in Rangers’ history.
| Stat | Russell Martin: 2025 | Jock Wallace: 1983-1986 | Paul Le Guen: 2006-2007 | John Greig: 1978-1983 | Pedro Caixinha: 2017 |
| Games managed | 17 | 124 | 31 | 288 | 26 |
| Wins | 5 | 55 | 16 | 150 | 14 |
| Draws | 6 | 36 | 8 | 71 | 5 |
| Losses | 6 | 33 | 7 | 67 | 7 |
| Win percentage | 29.41 | 43.65 | 51.61 | 52.08 | 53.85 |
That is not to say Martin cannot be a success elsewhere, but he was simply not cut out to be Rangers manager.
The same is true of Postecoglou at Nottingham Forest south of the border. Certain managers fit certain clubs, while the opposite can also be true.
Fingers crossed Rohl can get off to a brighter start than Martin, with the bar set extremely low for that.
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