Russell Martin has admitted that Rangers’ struggles this season are down to him as he delivers his verdict on whether Celtic will win the title.
The ex-Rangers boss had a torrid time in Glasgow as Martin struggled to keep up with Celtic in the early days of his Ibrox tenure.
Looking back at his time at the club, Martin says Celtic and Rangers fans are ‘lucky’ to still be in the title race while the former Ibrox boss admits his old club’s toils this season are down to him.
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Russell Martin says Rangers and Celtic are ‘very lucky’ to be title challengers
The former Rangers boss was sacked last October as the Ibrox club languished in the bottom half of the table.
And while Celtic have had their title troubles after the Wilfried Nancy era, Martin says the fact the Glasgow giants are still in with a shout is quite incredible.
Martin told BBC 5 Live Sport, “Whatever I say right now will be sensationalised tomorrow morning in the papers. So I’m going to sit on the fence.
“I think Celtic and Rangers fans will consider themselves very lucky that they’re still in with a title chance, considering they’ve had really poor seasons. One of them is all my fault, obviously.
“But apart from that I genuinely think it’s such an interesting season. I think Hearts shaking it up has been really good for Scottish football as a whole. People are talking about it way more.”
Martin says Celtic are not ‘at the level’ they can be
We told yesterday how Hearts’ title challenge to Celtic is not as remarkable as it looks and that it is down to the drop in standards this season.
And it appears that Martin agrees as he continued, “People will say it’s because the O-d F-rm haven’t been at the level they’re used to being, especially Celtic in the last few years, but the emergence of Motherwell and Hearts has been really good for the game up there.
“But both sides of the O-d F-rm still have a chance to win the league and fans have been so frustrated and disappointed with their seasons so it’s a really interesting and unique season.
“I really don’t know which way it’s going to go. Each week it changes and no-one’s really in flow.
“There doesn’t seem to be a team playing at the peak of their powers. It’s an eight game season and it’s gonna be really exciting. There’ll be a lot of twists and turns so it could go to any of those teams.”
Where we will disagree with Martin is that there is only one team looking on the up right now, and it is Celtic.
The Parkhead club are unbeaten in their last five games after Celtic dumped Rangers out of the Scottish Cup, drew with the Ibrox club in Govan in the league, and then have recorded wins against Stuttgart, Aberdeen and Motherwell.
Celtic fans are more optimistic now about winning the title than at any other point this season because Martin O’Neill has the team playing as a unit, and for each other.
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