{"id":358902,"date":"2025-08-20T07:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T07:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/358902\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T07:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T07:55:11","slug":"rangers-in-the-champions-league-russell-martin-proud-of-players-in-defeat-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/358902\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers in the Champions League: Russell Martin &#8216;proud&#8217; of players in defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They all displayed courage in the second half. We recovered properly and we hurt them as much as they hurt us. That goal changes everything. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The tie is still open. We have the privilege of hunting and chasing. We go in as underdogs &#8211; I&#8217;ll enjoy that and I think the players will as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Judging by the furious reaction of the Rangers supporters during the mortifying opening quarter of the game, again when the half time whistle blew, then at the end of the game, not all will agree with Martin&#8217;s assessment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When asked about the tumult of anger that rolled down from the Ibrox stands, the head coach acknowledged that the fans were entitled to react as they did, but cautioned that &#8220;the precursor to change is pain&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I understand the intensity and emotion here but it can&#8217;t change the way we work and become a weight around the players necks,&#8221; Martin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There has been fragility in this club for a long, long time. The club has bounced around different plans and its been hinged on emotions. Now we have owners that understand where the club has been, where&#8217;s it at, and where&#8217;s it going. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I came to this club knowing it wasn&#8217;t going to be easy or a quick fix. I hope we&#8217;ll be judged in May and by then we&#8217;ll be in a really good place and winning stuff. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There are loads for us to be excited about moving forward. We have to go next week and really attack it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;They all displayed courage in the second half. We recovered properly and we hurt them as much as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-358902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115060023409592782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}