Russell Martin confident Rangers will come good despite Genk defeat

Russell Martin retains belief that Rangers will come good in the long run after beginning their Europa League campaign with a 1-0 home defeat to Genk.

Gers midfielder Mohamed Diomande was shown a straight red card in the 41st minute for his challenge on Zakaria El Ouahdi.

In added time in the first half, Gers keeper Jack Butland saved a penalty from former Celtic striker Oh Hyeon-gyu, but the South Korean eventually opened the scoring in the 55th minute and it proved to be the winner.

Martin, who had no complaints about the red card, has won four times in 14 games since he took over in the summer and the remaining fans in the crowd of 37,898 – the lowest in a European game at Ibrox since Rangers came back to the top flight – chanted against him at the final whistle.

When asked what gave him continuing confidence, he said: “Well, the way the players train, the way they stick together in the second half, the feeling inside the training ground, so I can’t control anything else apart from that.

“We will work, learn from tonight. Have a bit of perspective on tonight and how difficult it was after the red card.

“Because whether you like it or not, it changes a lot when you are down to 10 men for so long in a game in a European tie.

“So, learn from it, especially the first half, where we hurt ourselves a little bit and got trapped too much.

“And then get ready to prepare and perform and win on Sunday.

“I’m disappointed we lose. The red card changed the game a lot. I was looking forward to getting to half-time.

“We had a few key points across to help the performance. We started fine, we had a bit of control and then we had a 10-minute spell where Genk got on top because we just didn’t look after the ball anywhere near well enough, forced it a little bit, and then we defended too deep because we didn’t take care of each other with the ball.

“And then I thought we rode that out and it looked like we were getting a bit of control back.

“Then Dio gets sent off, so it’s frustrating for us, really frustrating.

“I asked them to be really aggressive and not just defend for 45 minutes to try and get a draw and get a point, so I thought we looked a threat.

“And they had a couple of moments but they didn’t cut us open.

“It wasn’t like we were defending relentlessly and we had a couple of moments ourselves.

“So I’m frustrated. The red card changes a lot but I’m proud of the effort in the second half.”