Yesterday at Ibrox, Russell Martin heard his “soundtrack for the season.”

In spite of what’s being said in the media, let’s be clear: yesterday was not a great performance from an Ibrox team supposedly ready to challenge Celtic.

Brugge started the match without a number of first-team players. The Ibrox club did the same. Brugge then took off all their top guys at halftime and replaced them with what was basically a skeleton squad.

The Ibrox side, by contrast, brought on some of their better players from last season. And it ended in a 2–2 draw—a pretty average pre-season result.

Nothing was learned on the pitch. Nothing at all. The shape of this Ibrox team won’t be known until the new players are bedded in. And if I were in their hush puppies, I wouldn’t be expecting too much. Because what’s shaping up here is a lower-league rebuild, and that’s not what these people thought they were going to get.

Nevertheless, some of their fans are getting tremendously excited—excited enough to email me and ask if I’m “scared yet.” I covered that the other day, and I said it again last night on the podcast. Scared? Not even slightly.

But I’ll tell you what—something was learned yesterday. Not on the pitch, but off it. And it was learned by Russell Martin. It was learned by the Ibrox board. It was learned by anyone who’s been labouring under the delusion that this club is supported by fans who are tolerant, patient, or willing to give folk a chance.

It was a pre-season friendly against a European side with pedigree. It might not have been Brugge’s strongest eleven, but they’re a quality outfit from a league that is, let’s face it, better than ours. There’s no real shame in being 2–0 down to them at halftime in a friendly match. Not unless you’re dealing with those fans.

And yet the Ibrox support booed their team off the park. In a friendly. The first friendly of the campaign. With the new board watching on. With a new manager in the dugout. With new signings on the pitch. Missing their two top goalscorers from last season… and still they booed.

That’s not just telling—it’s deafening. If it hadn’t sunk in before, it should have by now.

These people—whether it’s the new board or Martin himself—have no margin for error. None. They’ve taken over a club whose fans are out of patience. And it’s not enough to say they need to “hit the ground running.”

Any mistake, any, is going to be punished by the mob in the stands. And part of the problem is that those fans were never convinced by Martin in the first place. So he’s not going to get an easy ride. Not now. Not ever.

The media won’t help him either—that much is already obvious.

A number of the Record’s hacks have already turned the heat up. Jackson, in particular, doesn’t miss an opportunity. His piece this morning—which I’m not going to bother covering in detail because frankly, there are days when I just don’t have the energy to deal with Jackson—was a hatchet job.

A hit piece on Martin and his entire vision for the club.

Remember, this is a guy who hasn’t even taken charge of a competitive match yet. And already the press are counting the minutes until he’s gone.

The disappointment across the media and among the Ibrox support is obvious. They thought they were getting a Real Madrid reserve coach and a sophisticated continental rebuild. What they’ve got instead is a group of lower-league signings and a manager with no top-flight pedigree. Some of them are now trying to convince themselves that this is all part of a master plan. That it’s not a come-down.

But it is. And they know it. And that was clear in the booing yesterday.

That sound at halftime wasn’t just frustration—it was disillusionment. And no one inside that club will have expected to hear it this early. New directors, first full season. New manager, not even started officially. And already a section of the support has made it plain: they don’t like the direction this club is heading in. And they’ll make that clear every chance they get.

The Champions League qualifier is in a matter of days. They’ve got no other major friendly lined up between now and then. They might play a closed-door match—but no one takes those seriously. So what the fans saw yesterday might be as close to the finished article as they’re going to get before that high-stakes tie.

And if they throw five or six new signings into the team all at once for that kind of game, that’s a massive risk. But is it any more of a risk than playing the same guys who let them down and got the last two managers the sack?

If they thought the booing yesterday was loud, they haven’t heard anything yet. It’ll be several decibels louder—and much more furious—if they don’t get a result against Panathinaikos.

With everything riding on that match, if they don’t get something positive to take to Greece, that booing could become the soundtrack for the entire season… and long beyond it.