Russell Martin: Consistency Will Drive Improvement

RUSSELL MARTIN says he wants his Rangers team to earn the right to play their own game against Dundee - just like they did against Viktoria Plzen.

The Gers Head Coach welcomes the Dens Park side to Ibrox tomorrow night looking to build on Tuesday’s 3-0 UEFA Champions League qualifying round win over the Czech outfit.

Martin knows consistency is key to success and insists he will continue to demand the best from the squad.

Speaking to the media, he said: “I want to see a similar attitude, we have a bit more learning and development, there were things we did well and things we can do better.

“We are really early on but we have to make sure we approach every game in the right way. In terms of the work and process and how we approach Dundee it is the same as Tuesday.

“If it remains the same, us being demanding about habits, then I think we will behave the same if we are in Europe, in the league or the Cup against Alloa.

“Every game here should be treated the same way. Every team is desperate to beat us.

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“We need to be really ready for that and make sure every game we try to play it on our terms as much as we can.

“I think we need to get to a point where we expect to dominate games against anyone at Ibrox. You don’t get given it, you have to earn the right and respect and you have to earn a bit of fear.

“Against Motherwell we didn’t scare them and didn’t earn the right to play the game our way, so you have to be aggressive and brave with the ball and on Tuesday we did that.

“We earned the dominance in that game and we need to do the same tomorrow.

“It is a different challenge and opposition and different ways they are going to approach it and we have to make the best game plan we can.

“We have watched Dundee and I like a lot of the things they are trying to do.

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“They have a new manager and they are getting to grips with that, but they played really well against Hibs and they were unfortunate as they had good moments in the game.

“We have to be prepared and focus on us and make it the game we want it to be and we did that on Tuesday, so we have to do that again.”

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New boy Oliver Antman made an immediate impact by winning the Light Blues a penalty, which was dispatched by Cyriel Dessers, before teeing up Djeidi Gassama for his second of the night in the 3-0 win over Plzen.

Martin, who will continue to be without Mikey Moore, Hamza Igamane and Thelo Aasgaard, was delighted with the Finnish international winger and has challenged him to reach the same levels of performance moving forward.

He added: “Oliver came really highly recommended by Kevin Thelwell and Dan Purdy, we watched him a lot and spoke to people who worked with him and they all said the same thing in that he had the mentality to play here - I was really pleased with what he did.

“We spoke to him at half-time and he is a confident boy, but in a nice way and you need that here.

“I expect him to carry on now as he has set the standard and he has to maintain that.

“It is the same for a lot of the guys and it is going to be consistency in behaviour, performance and effort will keep us improving all the time.”

  


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