Martin says he has to trust his striker is telling the truth over the injury which he knew nothing about
15:37, 24 Aug 2025Updated 19:23, 24 Aug 2025
Hamza Igamane ‘refuses’ to play for Rangers as Russell Martin drops stunning bombshell
Stunned Russell Martin claims Hamza Igamane REFUSED to come off the bench as his ragged Rangers dropped more points in Paisley.
The under-pressure Ibrox boss was looking for a spark as his team toiled against Stephen Robinson’s superb St Mirren side.
But he was left shocked when Igamane knocked back the chance to appear as a second-half substitute at the SMiSA Stadium.
The maverick Moroccan claimed he was injured and could not feature, leaving kid Findlay Curtis to rescue a point as he cancelled out Jonah Ayunga’s opener.
Now Martin says he will have to trust that the 23-year-old is telling the truth after revealing the club knocked back a bid for the Lille-linked striker earlier this week.
Martin – whose side now find themselves SIX points behind the title pace only three games into the season – said: “I wanted to bring Hamza on at around 60 minutes, and he said he has a sore quad, so he can’t come on.
“He trained fine yesterday, warmed up fine, and when I turned around at 60 minutes because I wanted two strikers on the pitch – that’s why Danny (Danilo) and Gass (Djeidi Gassama) ended up there – and Hamza told me he is injured.
“Did I know about that? Well, he wouldn’t be on the bench if he’s not fit. So he said he’d done it while warming up.
“We turned down a bid this week, but we’ll assess his injury and I have to trust that Hamza, so we’ll see what happens
“As a human being, I have to trust that he’s done it in the warm-up like he says.”
Martin admits he can’t wait for the transfer window to shut with speculation continuing to swirl round several of his top team figures – including AEK Athens target Cyriel Dessers.
Asked if Igamane was among those with one eye on the exit door, the Rangers boss – whose side now head to Belgium looking to overturn this week’s 3-1 loss in their opening Champions League play-off tie – replied: “Well I think when you’ve had a bid turned down in the week, then this happens, maybe.
“It happens in football, but I’ll go back to Cyriel again. He’s worked really hard to get fit, hasn’t quite been fit.
“He’ll probably be fit for Wednesday. So whilst he’s made it really clear what his intention would be or what his desire would be, there’s been no problem, none.
“So he trains properly, he’s performed with the team, been great. But everyone’s different, every human being’s different.
“Cyriel is quite experienced, some of the guys are really young. So the situation should be cleared up in the next 10 days. I’m quite calm about it. We’ll assess Hamza. Hopefully it’s not too bad and we’ll see what happens.
“Cyriel hasn’t asked to leave. He’s not asked to leave once. But we’ve had a lot of discussions about it. So we’ll see what happens.”
It was revealed on the eve of the trip to Paisley that Gers are closing in on a move for former Aberdeen striker Bojan Miovski.
Asked about the rumours, Martin said: “We’ve been linked with a lot of players. I think having two bids for strikers now, it’s probably common sense that we would look to replace them at some point.
Rangers’ Hamza Igamane before the game with St Mirren(Image: SNS Group)
“But he’s obviously another one that’s been linked like many, many, many players.”
Gers have offloaded Jefte, Ridvan Yilmaz, Ben Davies and Jose Cifuentes this week – and Martin expects more to follow before the window closes on September 1.
He said: “There’s a couple of guys that are not in the squad today, a couple of guys who have not played as much as they want to.
“And it’s always difficult. The thing is like, usually after eight weeks, you’re probably two or three games in.
“People have worked out over six or seven weeks in the pre-season, or you’ve had real honest chats because you’ve learned a lot about them.
“We’ve had to go into European games after four and a half weeks, so it’s very different.
“So, we’ll have to wait and see, but I’m really happy with the guys we’ve got.
“In 10 days, we need to be even happier with what we have in the building and the guys who really are not all in, probably need to play their football somewhere else.”