Russell Martin warned Rangers is no quick fix as former Ibrox lieutenant preaches patience to new regime in a hurry

Daily Record

a day ago

Issame Charai recently negotiated his exit from Govan after a sit down with the new boss before landing a top job elsewhere
Issame Charai was happy to accept there was no longer a place for him as a new era began at Ibrox.
But the former Rangers first-team coach sincerely hopes the American regime now in charge can make space for a more patient approach.
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Charai made the move to Glasgow only as recently as January as he signed up to join Philippe Clement's coaching staff.
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But within less than a month, the man who hired him was gone as the Belgian boss paid the price for an alarming drop off in results.
While Clement and the rest of his backroom team departed Ibrox, former Morocco Under-23 coach Charai was kept on board to help caretaker gaffer Barry Ferguson steer the side through to the end of the season.
It's now Russell Martin at the wheel, however, with the former Southampton head coach chosen by new chairman Andrew Cavenagh and his partner Paraag Marathe to lead the club towards a fresh dawn.
As for Charai, he's heading off on his own journey now having decided to call it quits following sit-down talks with Martin and new sporting director Kevin Thelwell.
There's no hard feelings, especially not now that the 43-year-old has quickly landed a new job managing Belgian top-flight outfit Westerlo.
'I had a good chat with Russell and with Kevin,' Charai told Record Sport.
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'We talked about my situation in the club. But I saw that Russell was coming in with an assistant Matt Gill.
'It was actually very respectful. We had a good chat, and then we talked about our job description, and it was quite the same [as Matt's].
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'And then I said, you know, 'I think it's better that we take a decision as soon as possible so I can try to get something else'.
'And then when we announced that we'd agreed mutually to part ways, my phone started ringing!
'So then it was about making the right decision about which club to join.'
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Rangers have had a string of major calls to make themselves lately.
Axing Clement was the one they did their best to hold off from making but in the end the anger of an increasingly furious fanbase left the previous Light Blues board with no choice.
Martin is the new regime's pick to become the club's fourth boss in as many years. But Charai has warned Rangers is no quick fix.
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Asked if the club needed stability and a fresh start, Charai said: 'Oh, absolutely. And I think that's the job of Kevin.
'He's trying to find out exactly what the club needs together with Russell and then drive it forward.
'Obviously with the knowledge that Russell has about Rangers, they're going to have to come up with a good plan together.
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'And it has to be a plan that can sustain the club for a long number of years.
'What I felt when I was at Rangers was that everybody wanted to win every game. So there was this pressure that you cannot change.
'And you can feel also that the competition with Celtic is so important. They want to stay in competition with Celtic.
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'The best thing for Rangers would be to have a short and a long-term vision.
'So that means that you work on the long-term vision, but at the same time, you would have also something where you can deliver quite fast results.
'The teams in the Scottish league have a level.
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'You make your analysis on what you have to do directly to get results, but then you have to build for sustainability in those results. And this is the most difficult one.'
When it comes to the short-term, there's hardly a second left to waste, with the club's opening Champions League qualifier just 23 days away.
So far, the only new faces Martin has welcomed are former Dundee playmaker Lyle Cameron and Bournemouth loanee Max Aarons.
The more jittery section of the Ibrox faithful are already in full-on panic mode as this summer's transfer dealings stutter into action.
But Charai said: 'They know when they have to be ready. So that means I believe that they should be ready. And they will be ready.
'It's not like they didn't know there was going to be a European game and they had to be ready at that time.
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'The takeover took some time and then they were appointing a manager, which took some time too.
'And then obviously you cannot go and bring in players that the manager wouldn't support, they he wouldn't want.
'So that took a little bit more time than expected.'
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Charai just wishes Clement had been afforded a little more time too.
The pressure on the former Club Brugge and Monaco gaffer became intolerable in the days after his side's disastrous Scottish Cup exit at the hands of Queen's Park.
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But having had to contend with off-field issues, including a temporary move away from Ibrox and the slashing off his budget last term, Charai hopes in time that his friend's critics will take into account the mitigating factors.
'That wasn't an ideal situation for Philippe,' he said. 'And I think a certain moment after the Queen's Park loss, it went more than normal.
'I think he did a good job at the club. He was working hard and OK, it wasn't easy because it took some time before Patrick Stewart to come along as CEO.
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'Also, with the club's finances, it wasn't an ideal situation. So I feel for him and also for Nils Koppen because they did actually hold the club very high. They worked very hard for the club.
'But OK, obviously there's a decision that was taken at that moment.
'And yeah, they asked me to stay and help the new staff. So, that's what I did.
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'Should people take on board the circumstances Philippe was operating under when they judge his time in Glasgow? Of course. Because you can see also that after a certain moment, I had the feeling it was more personal with them.
'At first all that mattered was what the players did on the pitch - but then it became a little bit more personal.
'But you can see that afterwards the same problems recurred again.
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'You had a positive vibe at one point - but then you saw a lot of things coming back again.
'So, that doesn't mean that it was all solved.
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'I think at a certain moment, the pressure from the supporters and from maybe the press became a little bit too much.
'But actually if you can see there were some good results, obviously the Celtic game.
'But there were also a lot of losses so they have to question that it's not always been the coach.
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'It was also the fact that there were some financial issues. And we couldn't bring in the players that everybody wanted to bring in.
'But I have to be honest, my time in Glasgow was a good experience. A lovely experience because I was working in a new competition that I didn't know. And I also had the privilege to work with Philippe and Barry.
'They had different ways of thinking which was interesting for me.
'At the same time, also playing in Europe was actually a very good campaign.
'And working for a top club with a lot of pressure.
'So that was, that was something that I added to my experiences that I really enjoyed."