Diomande and Raskin? Russell Martin demands that his flops drop their egos

While there was plenty of fun and enjoyment watching Russell Martin’s side draw 1-1 away to Motherwell his post-match interviews were arguably even better.

All summer long the media messengers have been painting a picture of harmony and togetherness over the new regime with the former Southampton hipster far from a popular choice.

With Jose Mourinho, Davide Ancelotti and Steven Gerrard being hyped up the last thing that full blooded bears wanted was a vegan Buddhist in charge of their institution.

Neil Warnock would have been more to their liking, someone preaching fire and brimstone rather than a touchy-feely head coach playing tippy-tappy soccer.

The Russell Revolution was motoring along fine till the SPFL premiership season got underway.

Motherwell, under their third manager this year in Jens Berthel Askou outplayed the visitors in their expansive game, if it hadn’t been for the Panathinaikos like finishing the home side would have won the match comfortably.

All of the old failings were there in blue jerseys which is hardly surprising since six of last season’s flops plus Kieran Dowell made it onto the team-sheet.

The new signings made little impact with Max Arrons looking way out of his comfort zone pretending to be a left-back.

After the match Martin destroyed his players on Sky Sports then followed that up in the general media conference which his club shared on You Tube.

Tellingly he questioned the mentality of the players and having too much ego. You can only assume that the ones with ego and mentality issues were substituted.

Danilo and Mohamed Diomande were substituted in the 63rd minute, Nicky Raskin and Joe Rothwell 10 minutes later then Djeidi Gassama was hooked in the 83rd minute.

Was Martin calling out Raskin and Diomande? two players linked with £50m moves away from Ibrox as the Player Trading Model is launched with the usual modesty.

It’s not the problems haven’t been tactical yet really, they’ve been mentality about energy, about courage, intensity, aggression to play that we haven’t started games well enough in the first half in the two European games and then showed a bit more  willingness to to trust the detail and each other and work.

And then today we go ahead and we’re playing some okay stuff. Every time we get in the final third, we turn the ball over and lose then make crazy decisions.

They’re either selfish decisions or they’re based on anxiety. So, we need to get to the bottom of that because there was far too much like stuff that we haven’t worked on or haven’t seen.

So, when we do what we worked on and we don’t come through then that’s  on us as a coaching staff and a group but when the problems are and I’ve said it to the players, it’s no different to what I’ve said to you.

It’s not it’s not me digging them out and trying. I take full responsibility for it, but that hurts me more than anything. The problem should be tactical, it shouldn’t be mentality. So, we have too many guys that slip into self-preservation mode.

And I think it’s been a factor of this club for the last few few years for sure.

Martin added:

You can’t pick and choose when you want to run. You can’t pick and choose when you want to compete and mark your player from a throw in or a corner. You can’t pick and choose when to run back. It is unacceptable for this football club and for us the coaching staff it’s just not acceptable. So loads of teething problems the same in terms of tactically that previous clubs have been at and all that stuff.

There’s always going to be, we’re six weeks in so there will be issues but the issue today is purely mentality. So too much ego, too much self-preservation and you’re either all in all the time or you’re not. And if you’re not, you just won’t play very much.

Martin will now have to drop the egos against Viktoria Plzen on Tuesday or transform them into team players prepared to do what their manager demands.