Russell Martin will not resign despite Ibrox turning toxic towards him in the 2-0 defeat by Hearts which left Rangers without a win in their first five Premiership matches.
There were only nine minutes on the clock when Gers fans began to chant the name of Nicolas Raskin, the popular Belgium midfielder left out of the squad amid an ongoing dispute with the Rangers manager, who suffered abuse from his own supporters all afternoon.
Lawrence Shankland drove the visitors ahead in the 22nd minute and after his 82nd-minute penalty was saved by Jack Butland, the captain netted the rebound for Hearts’ first win at Ibrox in 11 years to take them top of the table.
Hearts fans and remaining Rangers supporters ended up singing ’you’re getting sacked in the morning’ towards Martin but when asked outright in his post-match media conference if he would resign, the Rangers manager, who, after four draws and a defeat has led the teak to the worst league start in 47 years to leave them 10th in the table, simply said: “No.”
“The fans are entitled to their opinion so I can’t come out here and criticise that.”
Reminded that the fans clearly want him to go, Martin said: “I don’t think many of them wanted me here in the first place. We have a lot of new guys in there. We have a lot of players trying to feel their way in an environment that’s really difficult to feel their way into. Really, really difficult.
“So we just have to make sure they’re alright as human beings first and improve their performance. But there’s anxiety at the moment. The players are not the same team we see in training on Thursday and Friday when they go out and play in this environment right now. And that’s not a criticism of anyone. But we have to just keep working.”
Martin has previously stressed that he has the support of the Ibrox board and asked if it was still the case, the former Southampton manager said: “I don’t know. We’ll see, won’t we? They’ve been great up until now. All of them. So we’ll see.”
Asked how difficult it is to work when the fans are so vociferous, Martin spoke of his players being “scared” and said: “It doesn’t affect me personally. Professionally it’s difficult because we need the team to play in a certain way that requires certain things.
“And it’s really difficult when the atmosphere is how it is. It’s aimed towards me, not towards the players.”
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St Mirren climbed up to third after registering their first league win of the season, 2-1 at Falkirk. Declan John’s second-half free-kick broke the deadlock and Saints doubled their lead through Mikael Mandron’s late header before Brian Graham headed Falkirk’s consolation.
Stephen Robinson, the St Mirren manager, said: “We’ve had a very difficult start. We’ve played against the top three from last season, plus Hearts and a Motherwell team who are catching the attention at the moment.
“I think we’ve only lost three of our last 20 games, which includes two against Celtic. So, there’s a lot of good stuff. But we always feel there’s room for improvement.”
Aberdeen remain winless in the league and have yet to register their first Premiership goal of the season after they were held to a 0-0 draw by Livingston at Pittodrie. Jimmy Thelin, the under-pressure Aberdeen manager, said: “We share the frustration of the fans. We feel the same. It’s a frustrating period at the moment. We have to do much more – my job and the players’ job is to give the fans the feeling from the team.
Motherwell sit fifth in the table, but are also still waiting for their first league win of the season following a 1-1 draw at 10-man Dundee – the Well’s fifth straight Premiership draw. The Steelmen led at the interval through Zimbabwe forward (pictured above) Tawanda Maswanhise’s seventh goal of the campaign in all competitions before Dundee hit back through Luke Graham’s second-half header.Dundee midfielder Yan Dhanda was shown a straight red card with five minutes left after his challenge on Lukas Fadinger.
Hibernian scored a late penalty as they fought back from two goals down to claim a point in a 3-3 draw with Dundee United with the help of the video assistant referee. Nearly two weeks after they were wrongly denied a penalty against St Mirren, Jamie McGrath converted from 12 yards with six minutes left. PA Media
Derek McInnes guided Hearts to their first win at Ibrox since 2014 to make it 13 points from 15 in the first five league games.
The former Rangers midfielder was quizzed about any empathy he might have for Martin and he replied: “More than a bit, a huge lot. I didn’t like that today. It’s so unfair on a manager, I don’t like it at all. He is a fine man, he’s a fine manager and when results don’t always come, at clubs, especially clubs this size, it’s more than just the manager for me. That is tough on him.
“It’s early on in the season. He’s a new manager and likewise with myself, I am just in at Hearts and if we were still sitting towards the bottom end of the table and integrating loads of players and trying to kind of implement what we want to do, you’d be asking for that understanding. And as managers, that’s all we ask for. I enjoyed my team but it was hard to ignore that and it was hard not to have empathy of course.”
