RUSSELL Martin, the Rangers defender who was subjected to sickening sectarian abuse in the build-up to the game against Celtic eight days ago, has revealed the incident will not force him out of Glasgow.

Martin was called a “Hun p****” and an “Orange b******” by two men as he was shopping in a supermarket the day before the match in a vile verbal attack that was filmed on a mobile phone and posted on the internet.

However, the centre half, who is on loan at Ibrox from Norwich City until the end of the season, stressed he has enjoyed his time in Scotland and is keen to remain at the Ladbrokes Premiership club beyond the summer.

“It’s one of those things,” he said. “It’s the first time it’s happened and I don’t think it’s a regular occurrence for any of the lads. It is what it is. I didn’t think anything of it to be honest until I got a phone call about it.

“It’s disappointing, but it’s not indicative of the people up here or what I have found at all. It’s a really small minority, and we move on.

“I want to be here. Despite the result on Saturday (Rangers were beaten 1-0 at home by Kilmarnock), there’s still a lot to play for. We have the cup and we need to finish second in the league. It’s as simple as that. We need to try and haul the points back.

“I’m enjoying everything about being at the football club. I’ve made it known that I want to stay, so I will have to keep doing well enough to make sure that happens.”

Martin missed the Celtic game, which Rangers lost 3-2, with a back injury and the problem has, even though he played for 90 minutes against Kilmarnock, forced him out of the Scotland friendlies against Costa Rica and Hungary.

“My back is not 100% so I will have to try and sort that out this week,” he said. “ I might need something done this week, not surgery or anything, but I need time to go and get my back right, because I need to be fit for a big run in when we come back.

“I was seriously gutted to miss out last week. I tried, but it just wasn’t right, and to miss out on a game of that magnitude is difficult.”

The loss at the weekend was the seventh in the league that Rangers have suffered at Ibrox this season – the first time that has happened since way back in the 1914/15 campaign.

Martin, who only moved to Ibrox in January, is adamant none of the Rangers players have a hang-up about playing at the Govan ground and emphasized that, with so many new faces arriving at the start of the year, the side needed time to gel.

“I can’t speak for the games when I wasn’t here,” he said. “I was only here for the Hibs one where we played really well in the second half and should have got a draw.

“We just need to keep working, I’ve said it all along. Even though we’ve been on a great run, we’re not the finished article at all. It’s a process, and it takes a long time to get to where the manager wants us to be. The weekend was a setback, but we have to make sure we put it right and keep working on the same things.

“They will pay off, and we will get more wins than we do defeats, and we will have better days than we had on Saturday like we have recently. Saturday was just a bad day. We have to move on and make sure we show some character to bounce back.”

The loss to Kilmarnock on Saturday means that Aberdeen can leapfrog Rangers into second spot in the Premiership table if they win their game in hand against Motherwell away.

Russell admitted that Rangers, who were on a six game winning run before the Celtic match, have to bounce back from the successive losses immediately after the international break when they travel to Fir Park.

“Having pressure on you is the way at a big club like this and you have to be able to cope with that,” he said. “What I would say is that we were on a brilliant run to put ourselves in a good position, and we have to make sure that happens again.

“Aberdeen have got a game in hand, but let them do what they do and we’ve got to concentrate on us. It’s going to be a big run-in with some important games, and we have to cope with it.

Martin continued: “Sometimes you just need something to galvanise you in games to get you going and get the crowd going, but nothing triggered us to do that on Saturday, nothing at all, and that’s the frustrating thing.

“We didn’t look like scoring, whereas in the past few weeks we’ve had chance after chance. We haven’t been good enough and we’re disappointed by that.”