Only a stone’s throw from Glasgow Airport, a couple of planes flew overhead towards the end of Rangers’ 1-1 draw at St Mirren on Sunday afternoon.
The turbulence was not to be found at 40,000 feet, but at ground level on the touchline in Paisley as Russell Martin’s dreadful start as manager continued.
When Martin then revealed afterwards that Hamza Igamane had effectively downed tools and refused to come on as a substitute in the second half, it wasn’t just a case of a rebellious young player having his wings clipped by the boss.
Rather, in choosing to out Igamane so publicly while questioning his integrity and commitment, Martin made it clear that the young Moroccan striker really ought to be on the next flight out of Glasgow.
His destination? Well, that remains to be seen. Lille failed with a loan bid last week but are expected to come back to the table before the transfer window closes on Monday.
Igamane wants to leave and feels a move to France would be the best option. Marseille are also known to have an interest in the 22-year-old forward, who is talented but raw and unpolished.
Hamza Igamane told Russell Martin he was injured and unable to come on against St Mirren
Rangers struggled in the league once again on Sunday and have still to register a Premiership win this season after three matches
He hasn’t been in the job long but time is already running out for Rangers boss Russell Martin unless he can turn things around quickly
But there is a major problem for Martin and Rangers. With the manager choosing to go nuclear rather than keeping it in-house, he has weakened the club’s hand in any negotiations.
If Lille or any other club come back with another offer, they do so armed with the knowledge that Rangers have an unhappy player in the camp who desperately wants out.
At the start of the summer, Rangers were holding out for a fee of around £15million for Igamane. But a fee in that region now feels hugely unlikely.
Did Martin really need to make it public knowledge? If he felt that Igamane was feigning an apparent quad injury suffered in the warm-up, could he not have dealt with it privately?
Compare the situation to how Newcastle manager Eddie Howe has dealt with the Alexander Isak saga over recent weeks.
Knowing full well that he has a player who wants to leave and join Liverpool, Howe could have given Isak both barrels at any given moment.
But he was cute about it, no matter how tempting it may have been to condemn him as an outcast.
Howe left a door open for Isak to come back and be reintegrated into the squad, with a classy statement from Newcastle explaining that the Swedish striker would be welcomed back into the family when the time was right.
Isak, meanwhile, was throwing verbal hand grenades on social media and letting it be known to all and sundry that he felt promises had been broken. Newcastle and Howe rose above it.
Martin chose another route. One which, however legitimate his point about Igamane may have been, leaves the distinct impression of a manager who is already losing control.
Perhaps it is a cynical view, but it felt somewhat convenient for the manager to throw the player under a bus and deflect attention away from what had been another miserable performance.
Rangers have now made their worst start to a league season in 36 years. They have failed to win any of their opening three games — against Motherwell, Dundee and St Mirren — and sit seventh in the table.
Take it back to the start of last season with Southampton, Martin has won only one of his last 19 league matches. He hasn’t won a domestic league match since last November.
A growing number of Rangers fans are already calling for him to be sacked barely six weeks into the job. There is clearly dissent amongst the playing squad — and it all adds up to one almighty mess.
Martin has a Champions League play-off in Brugge followed by the first Old Firm derby of the season coming up next
Martin spoke last week about his appreciation of the calm leadership from the club’s new American owners, but that can only last so long.
The reality is that Rangers are a club hurtling head-first towards a full-blown crisis before we have even reached the end of August.
They are due in Belgium on Wednesday night where they will seek to overturn a 3-1 deficit against Club Brugge in the second leg of their Champions League play-off tie.
Celtic will then visit Ibrox on Sunday afternoon and, if they were to win and extend their lead over Rangers to nine points already, Martin would face questions about his job. That’s how rapidly this has all unravelled.
Privately, the powerbrokers at 49ers Enterprises want to give him time. They point to how Daniel Farke has turned it around at Leeds United after failing to win promotion initially.
Martin was initially recommended to Rangers chief executive Patrick Stewart by Sir Alex Ferguson back in March, with Stewart having worked previously at Manchester United.
It is understood that Stewart sought Ferguson’s counsel when Rangers parted company with Philippe Clement and Martin was one of the names put forward by the former United boss.
The 49ers will be reluctant to pull the plug prematurely. Their first manager appointed since taking control at Ibrox, Martin was supposed to be the poster boy for a fresh start.
But when you watch the body language of some of the players under Martin’s command, they leave a distinct impression at times that they don’t actually know what they are being asked to do.
If that is a failure of his coaching so far, then it must also be said that Martin has not been helped by a squad that remains bloated and lacking quality in key areas.
Hamza Igamane looks like he’ll be on his way out of Rangers, with Lille interested
Rangers currently have a senior squad of 31 players. Even after shifting deadwood such as Ben Davies, Jefte and Ridvan Yilmaz over the past week, too much excess fat remains.
Ross McCausland, Jose Cifuentes, Robin Propper, Tom Lawrence and Ianis Hagi alos left earlier in the summer, but there remains too much dross on the books. Too many players who are not ‘all-in’, a phrase Martin has used repeatedly over recent weeks when asked about his efforts to remould and rebuild the squad.
Clearly, Igamane would now top that list of players. Other players who still need to be shifted before the window closes include Nedim Bajrami, Leon King, Bailey Rice, Clinton Nsiala, Rabbi Matondo and Kieran Dowell.
Privately, Cyriel Dessers would also be open to a move away and Rangers would be happy to move him on if they can find a buyer.
But this is where Rangers have a problem. Dessers is on a weekly wage of around £25,000 and still has two years to run on his contract.
Likewise Matondo, who also pockets £25,000 per week despite the fact he hasn’t played a competitive match for Rangers since January.
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Part of the reason why it took so long to shift the likes of Davies, Lawrence and Propper is because of the fact they were earning so much money. No other club would match it.
It is reflective of the wider recruitment failings over the past two or three years that the club continues to try and free itself from such expensive deadwood.
It was hoped that Igamane would be a rare shining light in that regard. Signed for only £2m last summer, the plan was to develop him for a couple of seasons before selling him on for a tidy profit.
Rangers will still make a profit, but Igamane will leave under a cloud, rather than being the embodiment of a new and improved recruitment model.
He has been a Rangers player for barely five minutes in the grand scheme of things. But with Martin choosing to go nuclear on Sunday, there is no way back now. Not in the long-term.
Martin needs to sort out the Igamane mess, as well as the dire run of results. If he doesn’t do that, and do it quickly, then his tenure as Rangers manager will fail to take flight.