NEIL McCANN has urged Russell Martin to right his wrongs with Nico Raskin after he left the midfielder out for the first Old Firm derby of the season.
SunSport exclusively revealed on Friday that Raskin would play no part for Rangers against Celtic after a fall out with the Light Blues manager.
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It’s understood Martin made the decision to axe the Belgian 24 hours after he was slammed on social media for having an ‘oversized ego’ by Raskin’s DAD.
His bold decision to leave him out of the squad was backed by senior Ibrox players.
But Rangers hero McCann, who worked with Raskin last season, reckons Martin should have done a better job managing the situation with the fan favourite.
Addressing his absence at Ibrox while working for Sky Sports, McCann said: “Has Russell got that wrong? I think he has. I would love to see Russell try and make something happen. Just maybe have a sit down with Nico.
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“Nico’s a Belgian internationalist. Generally someone who plays for Belgium is valued at £20million and upwards. Of course he’s got to perform on here.
“But do you want him to leave maybe go on a loan, which might be an obligation – possibly at a far-reduced value of the player.
“If there was a problem I’d think maybe try to sit down with him and work it out.”
McCann was part of Barry Ferguson’s interim coaching team that tried to steady the ship when Philippe Clement was shown the door.
During his short spell back working with his old club, McCann got to know Raskin well and they didn’t see eye-to-eye all the time.
The 51-year-old admits the midfielder had moments where he was ‘disruptive’, but he believes he knew how to handle him.
McCann continued: “If he’s been disruptive in the dressing room then that’s something the player need to deal with as well.
“His disruptive nature came from when he was challenging us on the training pitch last season. He would question you.
“I had a very heated exchange with him regarding how he played. We wanted him to play as a left-sided eight but he kept coming in to where Connor Barron was.
“I showed him five or six examples, and he took it on board. He still had something to say like ‘well, I can come and start things’. You have to be strong with him, but you have to understand that once it seeps into him and he gets it, then he generally accepted it last year.
“And I actually thought it was brilliant. I thought he was brilliant when we were in there. And he went to one in the start for Belgium. He scored against Celtic.
“He bossed a lot of games. He was brilliant in the European games. So I would have loved Russell to sit down and say ‘you know what? Maybe I made a mistake here’.”
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