by the club as "unacceptable behaviour" on the flight to Johannesburg. He returned to Scotland and was subsequently loaned to Zenit St Petersburg on 9 August. Ricksen never played for the club again as his loan spell in Russia was made permanent. The Scottish Premier League season opened on 30 July, with Le Guen taking his Rangers side to Fir Park, where they defeated Motherwell 2–1. In Le Guen's first competitive game at Ibrox, Rangers were held to a 2–2 draw by Dundee United, and were forced to come back from two goals down. On 11 August, Rangers signed Manchester United's 19-year-old winger Lee Martin on loan for the season. They also recruited the services of Austrian Vienna defender Saša Papac, while Marvin Andrews, Olivier Bernard, Bob Malcolm and José-Karl Pierre-Fanfan all departed. With the transfer window closed and five league matches played, Rangers had collected nine points from fifteen. The next two months showed little improvement as the side had sporadic wins, and they lost the first Old Firm match of the season 2–0. From the seven matches played in September and October 2006, the team won three and gathered ten points from the twenty-one available. By mid-November, Rangers found themselves in third place, fifteen points behind leaders Celtic. The odd win was mixed with regular dropped points as the team struggled to find consistency in the early part of the season. The club was knocked out of the League Cup by then-First Division side St Johnstone. The 2–0 defeat at Ibrox on 8 November led to widespread calls for Le Guen to leave. Following the League Cup defeat, there was a slight gain in form as the side claimed sixteen points from twenty-one, including a 1–1 Old Firm draw, thanks to a last-minute Brahim Hemdani equaliser. Rangers also became the first Scottish club to qualify from the UEFA Cup group stage in December 2006, after wins over Livorno, Maccabi Haifa and Partizan Belgrade. Domestic results and performances, however, continued to be inconsistent and in January 2007, Le Guen controversially stripped midfielder Barry Ferguson of the captaincy. On 4 January 2007, Le Guen left Rangers by mutual consent. This made him the club's shortest-serving manager, and the only one to leave the club without completing a full season in charge. Later that year, sports journalist Graham Spiers published a book which speculated Le Guen left the club because he