JOHN Hartson has criticised Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace for confronting Rangers manager Graeme Murty in the Rangers dressing room following the 4-0 defeat at Hampden on Sunday.

And Hartson has suggested the fact the Ibrox directors have decided to back Murty and suspend Miller and Wallace shows he may be kept on as manager beyond the summer.

The former Welsh international reckons the experienced Scotland caps should have voiced their feelings at Auchenhowie this week instead of immediately after the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final.

“If it’s a senior player with the manager, do you expect that?” he said. “Shouldn’t he just be saying ‘Look, can I have a word with you?’ Then it happens on Monday morning. A senior player, good player, having a private chat with the manager. Maybe it should’ve happened that way.

“If they’ve gone with Graeme Murty, then somebody in the board must like him. Somebody must be backing him. He’s obviously gone to the board of directors and the chairman and said: ‘Look, I want this boy out’. It’s his decision.

“People are saying Rangers are looking for a new manager – but that tells me that it might not be Graeme Murty out in the summer, he might instead be stronger there than people think.

"I don’t know what the circumstances are. All I would say is if Graeme Murty has gone to his bosses and said ‘look I want this lad out the club, he’s poison, he’s a cancer, I don’t want him here anymore’ and they’ve sacked him then that shows me the power that Murty might have."