David Herd: Russell Martin's exit from Rangers was 'inevitable' once fans started voting with their feet

Russell Martin’s exit from Rangers became a matter of when and not if as soon as fans stopped turning up for games in their usual number.

That is the view of David Herd, from Four Lads Had a Dream, who claims the point of no return was reached when there was 20,000 empty seats at Ibrox.

Speaking to STV Sport after Martin was sacked following just five wins from 17 games, the podcaster said fans had started voting with their feet.

He said: “There is no surprise whatsoever, it was inevitable, there’s probably a decent argument to say that it’s overdue and it’s taken longer than it should have done.

“But, unfortunately, the long and short of it is that it was never going to work, and it had to happen.

“Fans’ protests are the visible measure of unhappiness, it is unfortunate that it got as far as it did, and I do feel a bit sorry for him in terms of how personal some of it got.

“But, I personally think the thing that decided his fate was A) results and B) the number of fans who simply did not buy into it.

“If you look at the League Cup game against Hibs: almost 20,000 empty seats, there was 15,000 empty seats in the European match against Genk, hospitality packages not selling out, the game against Roma that’s coming up is miles away from being a sell-out.

“Fan just haven’t bought into it, and financially it must be costing the club a fortune. Plus we have now lost five European games in a row, that’s a lot of prize money to lose.”