Russell Martin earns 'most authentic manager I've assessed' tag as Rangers rant dissected by expert

It comes after Martin laid into his Rangers players after the 1-1 draw at Motherwell on the opening day of the Premiership season that has left them playing catch up to Celtic already.

The damning post-match interview which saw Martin call out his team for having a "mentality problem" has been analysed by Darren Stanton, who is known as the ‘human lie detector’.

And he felt the former Southampton boss spoke directly from the heart as he detected no ulterior motives behind the forthright address.

“This was a great bit of footage,” said Stanton. “You don't often see managers that are so direct.

“I think basically this guy wants to give the impression that heads are going to roll. He's attributed all the faults, everything to certain players even though he’s called out the culture as a whole. He’s got pressure on himself for sure to get the team to perform but the non verbal signals are clear.”

“There’s a lot of anger,” continued Stanton. “His eyes are pulled together and pulled down.

“Martin was looking down and left for most of the interview, if you notice, which is what we call auditory internal dialogue. This happens in a split second. He's thinking very carefully about what he's saying but it does tell me that he's been genuinely authentic.

‘He’s not trying to mask anything’

"He's speaking from the heart. If he was trying to manage the risk of what he’s saying to the media we would see some bilateral shoulder shrugs, which is where one only shoulder moves. He seems genuine because he did lots of double shoulder shrugs. He’s not trying to mask anything.”

Martin’s direct comments caused a stir and Stanton reckons the new Ibrox boss will need to walk a fine line when it comes to putting his emotions on full display.

“When he was asked the follow up question, he changed,” added Stanton. “He looked up and left. That's the only time he showed a shift in emotion but principally he’s shown a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and I think he’s going to be making sure people will be leaving.

“I don't believe he's being driven by fear. There was no fear here. I think it's purely anger and frustration because he basically thinks people are taking him, the fans and the club for a ride.

“I think it's going to be a very fine line for Martin to walk. He's got to be careful because if he’s coming in all guns blazing, I think some of the players could cause him problems. Like anybody that works in the public eye, including sports people, they’ve all got egos as big as the moon.

“Clearly there's a motivational issue going on there because if they are being lackadaisical when things aren't going so great, if they don't tend to fight back when things are difficult, that's really bad.”

Laying down the law

Stanton believes the manner in which Martin filleted his players on day one of the league season shows he is "not going to suffer fools glady at Rangers".

“He wants to lay the law down and those that don't want to play ball in his own words can walk and sometimes you've just got to pull a scary face in life,” added Stanton in his interview with OLBG.

“It’s nice to be nice but you've also got to stand up for yourself and defend your values and say what you think is wrong.

“If the fans get behind him and support his strategy to go in there and start kicking some arse then I do think heads will roll but it's all about leverage.

“No one person is bigger than the team, or at least that’s the idea isn’t it, so he has to control the framing and the narrative because at the end of the day he's the manager or the coach, especially if there's one or two players who run against that.

“I think out of all the managers I’ve been asked to assess, I think Martin is the most forthright and probably most authentic and direct I’ve seen in some time. He looks like the sort of man that's not going to suffer fools gladly at Rangers.”