Celtic hero clamped by BBC man on air amid Rangers sacking 'insinuation' accusation as debate turns box office

A miffed Celtic hero has accused a BBC figure of wanting Russell Martin sacked - as Ibrox future talk sparked a fiery debate.

The Light Blues head coach is under serious pressure after a poor start to the season, with a 1-0 defeat at home to Genk midweek albeit with 10 men for the entirety of the second sparking more doubts. Heading into the game at Livingston on Sunday in the Premiership, Rangers are 11th after five games played.

Debate arose over Martin’s tenure and Jimmy Thelin at Aberdeen, who pressure has since increased on with his side not scoring a goal after six games, following their 2-0 defeat at Motherwell. Prior to that game, former Celtic battler Collins argued that fans booing Martin at Rangers were not doing much to help the situation.

BBC man accused of wanting Rangers sacking

That sparked eyebrow raising from some of the panel, that included ex-Rangers striker Rory Loy and chief sports writer Tom English. As the conversation moved on, English was sent a blistering accusation from Collins, who said: “You say that it's good from the Aberdeen board, that they're giving them time to turn things around. Is that a good board or a bad board?”

English argued that they had been showing ‘admirable patience’ in the north with Thelin to which Collins said he was contradicting himself and saying the opposite for Rangers. The far from happy Celtic favourite who featured over 200 times between 1990-1996 was then asked what he truly meant and responded: “You want the manager out as quickly as possible. You're insinuating. Every sentence that comes out your mouth, you're insinuating it.”

The response clamped that notion, English firing his own comeback: “No, no, did you hear those words coming from my mouth? I'm not insinuating. What I am trying to do is try to look at the issues that have to be dealt with here, the mistakes that have been made. I have never said that Russell Martin should be sacked. You're just imagining that.”

Rory Loy on Rangers situation

Loy was next up to try and bring some calm to the situation and said: “Just on John’s point, Waller Smith, I was at the club when he came in the second time when Paul Le Guen had been there. Waller Smith came in, you know, he signed Steven Whittaker, Kirk Broadfoot, Steven Naismith. You know, not multi-million pound signings, but he came in and got a tune out of them and got them back, Rangers, back to where they felt they should be.

“So it wasn't always about the first era. He came back in the second era and made more modest signings than he was able to produce. I just think it needs to be stripped back with Russell Martin. It doesn't matter who's bringing these players in and what's happening with them. The goals they concede, and I watched them at Alloa, and I watched Connor Sammon pull onto Max Aarons twice and cause all sorts of issues without anyone fixing it from the sidelines, anyone fixing it on the pitch. I watched that continuing to St Mirren, continuing to Brugge, continuing to these games.”

Collins wasn’t prepared to come off his hill and turned on Loy next with “So he's saying he's a really bad manager?” midway through the former striker’s assessment. Loy responded: “Let me finish, John, let me finish. The simple fact is, whether it's Russell Martin's issue or the players' issue, we don't know. But, John, it's a matter of fact that these issues have continued. That is irrefutable. So you can put me on the spot and say, is he a bad manager, is he not. The undeniable argument is they have continued to ship goals through very basic, basic mistakes.”