For years, that iconic badge is proud of the wall of the main standard at Ibrox. A golden lion on a royal blue background with the word 'ready' underneath – in large, daring capital letters.
However, if a club at the moment looks the opposite of his motto, it is Rangers. We all know the summer takeover of chairman Andrew Cavenagh and his American consortium ate a lot of time and energy. We know that their plan is based on long -term investments instead of short -term shield points.
Russell Martin did not get into the work of the manager until June 5 and still gets under the table while trying to change a culture, change a playing style and change the atmosphere around a dressing room that sounds like it contained the decibel levels of a mausoleum.
Rangers will take a while to get where they want to be. The lack of warm-up matches of decent quality and the apparent shortage of viable options at the front, in particular, suggests that they are light years to be ready to hit the stamp against Panathinaikos in the Champions League qualifications on Tuesday evening.
Given how a confusing structure is worked out, it is impossible to see how they will be something other than not cooked for a two -legged confrontation against the Greeks, who have pressed in a respectable number of friendly competitions in preparation.
At the moment, instead of standing up, Martin is being encouraged by a statement, Martin seems to be a serious danger to go through his own Artmedia moment.
Former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan was in the headlines this week after talking about how he feels that the current Parkhead -Baas Brendan Rodgers could call it a day at the end of the season. He may be in the spotlight again by the end of next week, and offers Martin advice on how to put your shattered life back together after seeing your competitive old business debut in Europe from a baptism of fire to a journey through the depths of Hades.
There are clear differences between Strachan's first game as a Celtic Manager-that notorious five-purpose that was beaten from Artmedia Bratislava in July 2006 and Martin's competitive debut in the hot-seat at Ibrox.
In favor of the new Rangers manager, the first stage against Panathinaikos is at home, but that is almost the only favorable comparison.
The bone in Athens a week on Wednesday can be a long, long night to run the glove. When Strachan took over in Parkhead, Celtic had a strong team. They were soothed to the league title just on the last day of the previous season.
Russell Martin entered an explosion zone. In addition to the regime change at the top of the club, the dressing room and still needed to be needed.
Billy Dodds, a noble man whose analysis of the game is based on balance instead of sensationalism, said it best when thinking about his short spell as the first-team coach under interim manager Barry Ferguson against last season's end of the Misadventures.
He described too much of the players that Ferguson inherited as 'weak' and lacked the 'necessary mental force'. His opinion was that 70 per cent of the team did not have the minerals to be with Ibrox. It was a dazzling things.
If Strachan could end the wrong end of a whip in Europe with established figures such as Neil Lennon, Chris Sutton, John Hartson and Stilian Petrov in his team, almost anything could happen when Martin welcomed his time in Glasgow with a team with a team still tries to merge desperately.
Those of us who were in Slovakia that night for Strachan's great curtain booster will never forget. It went well, from memory, to about 20 minutes when Sutton hit Lennon and finally picked up with a broken cheekbone.
Artmedia grabbed one before halftime and then, after the break, the roof, trusses and the entire set and Caboodle stopped. Strachan, a jet of sunshine in the pre-season camp in Burnham Beeches, who brought his players to Rod Stewart's Gaff for a kickabout to a kickabout. He called it the worst night of his football life. It was crazy.
Of course it didn't stop him from becoming a successful Celtic manager. And even if this draw against Panathinaikos ends in an expected defeat in two games, the Martin's stay in Glasgow does not have to define. He needs time to rectify the mistakes of many, many years of terrible recruitment.
Although a kind of European group football is needed for financial purposes, it is very unlikely that these Rangers team will achieve the Champions League the right one. The Premiership should be its primary focus this period.
However, that does not mean that there should be no control why Rangers are so poorly prepared for the first match of the campaign.
Yes, Martin did not come in until the beginning of last month and it is not unreasonable that those above him wanted to wait in the pecking order for the head coach to be in place before he completed summer plans.
However, sports director Kevin Thelwell was appointed at the end of April and CEO Patrick Stewart has been in situ for a while. Couldn't they have used a bit ahead and set up more than just one Ibrox -friendly against Club Brugge?
They have always had the dates of these Champions League qualifications. It just feels more in the diary than that visit of the Belgians and then some training ground-bounce games against Barnsley and Scottish opposition in the lower league for a visit from Middlesbrough to Govan to Govan to Govan.
It is difficult to assess what is going on in the preseason. The 2-2 draw with Bruges came incredibly early and was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde affair with one terrible 45 minutes and a half decent. Unlike that, the proof is scarce.
One thing is certain. The goals lost against Bruges and in that 1-1 draw with Barnsley in St George's park were absolutely shocking. Serious work has to be done on the back line and, although the idea of Joe Rothwell instructs midfield and Mohamed Diomande and Nico Raskin allows to get ahead, sounds good, a mess looks like at the front.
Cyriel Dessers seemed to go on AEK Athens, but it has become a bit cold. Answers on a postcard about why Hamza Igamane was missing after a first problem with his visa and endless rumors about a move to France. Both finally came back 45 minutes in a 2-0 bounce game victory over Hamilton yesterday, but cannot be match-fit.
It does not seem that both may be able to start against Panathinaikos. That means that it is Danilo in the box-seat, a BIT part player during the stumbling of the last term from one disaster to another.
People need to be sold to cut the team and get more money for a new, correct center-forward and extra attacking reinforcements, but it has not happened so far. That is also on Thelwell.
The side is painfully short on the width and it is not a shock to hear that Djeidi Gassama is signed too late to be ready to start. With Thelo Baasgaard injured, it is someone's gamble who will play on either side of Danilo.
There are of course other red flags. Martin still talks that the team is painfully quiet, although he reports that it gets better as he brings in his own boys. It is difficult to know what to make of his senior leadership group consisting of James Tavernier, Jack Butland, John Souttar and, shock of all the shocks, Kieran Dowell.
If you had requested most Rangers fans in May, they would have predicted that at least three-miss those boys had been this term from the photo of the first team. Instead, instead, at least they will send the dressing room-height over the edge of the cliff as far as the Champions League goes.
That will of course not be the end of the world, but you just think that Rangers are better able to compete than this.
Rodgers seems to play a dangerous game at Celtic
Labeling boys who have been brought in for buttons, because club investments are not ready for the first team or better pronounced in loan, increases the strange eyebrow here and there.
£ 1.3 million spend on a striker and immediately explains that you still need more in advance, because you have to take a good look at it comes with the clang of constantly lousing alarm bells.
Those were the words of Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers in midweek after the arrival of Shin Yamada from Kawasaki Frontale and they simply contribute to the suspicion that the transfer window did not fully shape as he expected after the disappointment of January of seeing Kyogo Furuhashi and not.
Yes, there is still a month to go to the all-important play-off of the Club of Champions League. However, the competition campaign starts in fourteen days before the title holders and no one can say that Celtic now looks stronger than six months ago.
Rodgers is a smart guy who weighs the weight of his words. It is not work of the imagination that he retains a certain distance between himself and a considerable number of players who have arrived so far.
Moreover, we already have proof that the Parkhead manager can be stubborn when it comes to dealing with players that he is not sure. Look back at his first summer in Celtic Park.
He nodded at a press conference about working with whom the club wanted to sign, but Marco Tilio, Gustaf Lagerbiielke, Odin Thiago Holm, Maik Nawrocki and all the rest saw no big action when the actual campaign started.
Initially it felt as if it refused to bind to the club after this season, the use of it as a form of leverage, could work in favor of Rodgers, while looking at it to make the board invest heavily in the “two or three high -quality additives” that he has very publicly stated that he needs.
But at the moment you start to wonder if those who are on high have decided that they are not ready to commit to the different signing sessions of big money that the manager wants if he is not willing to tell them what he does because his contract slowly ends.
Anyway, it is becoming an increasingly larger issue. What should also be considered is that more and more voices are starting to express their own views about what the future has in store for Rodgers like things standing. It starts to dominate the story with regard to the Parkhead -Outfit.
Former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan thinks the Brodge can now be gone at the end of the season when his contract ends, and it is easy to see where he comes from.
The first media conference of Kieran Tierney was also focused on how he thinks Rodgers will deal with the speculation around his future.
Celtic should have more than enough to win the title against a rangers side this season in a large reconstruction phase, but this torpor in the transfer market in combination with a lack of clarity about Rodgers's long-term plans is now whole, very, very close when becoming a most useless distraction.