Russell Martin’s body language shows he’s under big pressure at Ibrox and doesn’t believe his own words. | OneFootball

DISCLAIMER: Ibrox Noise does not endorse the comments of Darren Stanton, this article is for entertainment purposes only.

Rangers boss Russell Martin’s body is contradicting his statements about not feeling the pressure according to body language expert, Darren Stanton, in an interview with OLBG.

Speaking after the Gers 1-1 draw with St Mirren, their third draw in three games in the Scottish Premiership, that followed a loss to Club Brugge in the Champions League, Martin once again criticised his players in front of the media.

However, having analysed Martin’s own performances in front of the press throughout the season so far, including after the loss to Club Brugge and the draw with St Mirren, Stanton flagged up the issues that suggest there is already more going on at Ibrox.

While Stanton initially saw conviction and directness in how Martin started the season by speaking out about his team following their opening weekend draw with Motherwell, he now sees the repetition of that tactic with no improvement on the pitch as something different.

Read the full analysis of Martin’s comments from the past week below.

Russell Martin’s body language suggests he is feeling the pressure from ownership

We’ve all heard of the Freudian slip, which happens when someone says something that they were thinking but they didn’t mean to say it out loud. The same thing happens in body language which we call a gestural slip.

That occurs when Martin was asked the question about dealing with the pressure and he asks the reporter from who?

It’s obvious that’s a question about the owners and the pressure on Martin to keep his job and what we see is what we call a bilateral shoulder shrug, which is the gestural slip.

A normal shrug of the shoulders is a gesture to express that you don’t know, you don’t care or that you’re indifferent to something but a one-sided shoulder shrug, the bilateral shoulder shrug, can be an unconscious tell that is greater meaner or tension compared to what you’re saying.

Martin is trying to convey indifference to the pressure he is under but his body betrays itself and gives off that gesture that suggests he doesn’t feel totally supported by the owners and he has no real confidence in what he’s just said.

Martin’s comments on the Rangers players now feel prepped in advance rather than direct or heartfelt

He also deflects the question about pressure back on to the players to ultimately say the pressure is on them, not him.

That seems like an escalation in the delusion we have seen from Martin in recent weeks, that situation and results are not his personal responsibility.

He’s not grasping the fact that the book stops with him. He’s just getting through the interview, but he’s got a lot of anger towards the team.

We see towards the end of the interview. The eyes come together, the eyebrows come together, and we see the like a furrowed brow, and the two lines in between the nose and the eyes. That denotes anger as the eyes get pulled down.

He directs all of the problems down to the players, and he makes a reference, even before he talks about Hamza Igamane and Cyriel Dessers.

We didn’t hear any mention of I or me from Martin whether that was I’m going to do this, it’s down to me, or even I’m going to kick some ass.

He goes from looking up to continuously looking down and left, which is what people do when they access their auditory internal dialogue, to pull out something to say that is almost prepared ahead of time.

He realised this interview was probably going to be the same as the last few in a very similar format so it’s like he’s almost prepped what he’ll say in advance.

When we look down and left, it’s almost like accessing our own internal tape recorder voice in our head, voice memo.

Martin was distancing himself from the Rangers team after Club Brugge as if he wanted to blame the players

“He speaks about his frustration and you can see there’s real anxiety,” Stanton told OLBG after the defeat to Club Brugge. “He clearly feels enormous pressure to get a result but for some reason he’s using a number of things that suggest he is blaming the team and not taking any personal responsibility.

“He’s also using pronouns such as we instead of me, creating a distance even in his own mind that he’s not wholly responsible. It’s more or less on the players.

“There’s more going on here but not everything is about the nonverbal here. Even the way he phrases what he’s saying, the syntax of his words, there’s clearly what we would call distancing language. He’s distancing himself, and his responsibility, for the performance.”

Martin doesn’t appear to have any confidence in what he’s saying

“He’s said that we know we won’t concede two goals again like that but he has no confidence in what he’s saying,” added Stanton. “You can see he was looking up for answers, and that’s a behaviour that suggests he is accessing his imagination.

“He is imagining what to say and forming his answer in his mind rather than speaking with conviction on what he feels.

“Later on, as he gets more frustrated, he looks down, and this tends to be behaviour that means a person is accessing their gut instincts with what we call kinesthetics.

“He displays anger and a sign of disgust when he accesses those gut feelings and if you notice he crinkles his nose, which is a microexpression.

“It lasts maybe a fifth of a second but that’s the physical expression of disgust when he’s having to answer as he is deflecting the poor performance onto the team rather than himself.”

Martin doesn’t seem to understand the optics of what he’s saying and the situation he finds himself in at Rangers

“I think there’s a little bit of delusion creeping in,” continued Stanton. “He can’t say that in the first half it was pretty much terrible but then in the second half they pulled it back because I don’t think he actually has any confidence in what he’s saying there.

“I don’t really feel he’s understanding the true optics of the situation and how he’s coming across. He is principally the man in the hot seat and the players really are under his guidance and control.

“He didn’t direct it to any particular player but I do feel these continued comments about the team to the media will bring a lot of anger and disgust at the fact that he’s in this position.”

Martin keeps speaking out against his players will create a downward spiral

“I think he was trying to come over like he is someone who is not going to take any nonsense when he spoke out about his team after they drew with Motherwell,” concluded Stanton. “But that behaviour has continued and so have the poor performances so nothing’s happened.

“I think he’s now feeling even more under pressure as a result because he’s not delivering.

“It’s all well and good saying I’m going to start kicking ass, taking names, but if you don’t follow through on that and end up with another disastrous result you lose credibility, and that can lose your grip on the dressing room.

“If you are going to keep throwing your team under the bus rather than saying I’m the guy that’s ultimately responsible, the buck stops with me, it will only go one way.

“It’s gonna be very interesting to see what happens now but he’s not a cat and even if he was I don’t think he’s got too many lives left at this rate and I think he knows what could be coming too.”