KEITH JACKSON

SCOTLAND'S MOST INFLUENTIAL SPORTS COLUMNIST

- KEITH JACKSON

TIME and patience seldom last as long as they are required.

And so, less than 100 days into the job, Russell Martin knows the damning verdict of public consensus is highly unlikely to be overturned.

He may think he did enough yesterday to start turning it around by avoiding a defeat at home to Celtic. But he'd be kidding only himself.

The stats say four games into the league campaign Martin has already shipped eight points and is still waiting for his first win in the top flight.

The jeers that rang out around Ibrox on the final whistle and ramped up in volume when he made his way up the tunnel should tell the manager he is simply killing time in the dugout until the inevitable end.

This, after all, was another opportunity missed for Martin to start clawing his way back into the affections of the home fans.

It was a wet drip of a derby, played out by two teams devoid of confidence and conviction and contested by two sets of players who looked utterly terrified by the scale of the fixture itself.

A match that captured everyone's attention before a ball had been kicked, purely because of the state this pair have got themselves into over the summer, but that ultimately satisfied just about no one. Desperately low on quality from start to finish and almost completely bereft of drama.

Yes, Celtic walked away content enough to get back to the other side of the city without suffering any significant damage.

Liam Scales was one of the strongest performers on the pitch and certainly the key contributor for Brendan Rodgers' side.

And that ought to be a huge concern for the Celtic boss who must realise his side are now entering into an alarming decline.

They could still be out there playing today without troubling Jack Butland and this obvious disconnect could undermine Rodgers' hopes of bowing out at the end of this season with another clean sweep in the cabinet.