It's just a clever way of calling the players out publicly without calling them out publicly yet making it obvious publicly, if that makes sense.
He's trying to get it in to the local media lads that he won't be drawn into giving them negative headlines, something that TWTD is actually very good at doing. They know all too well over there that the negative stories get twice as many pages of comments, and therefore twice as many 'hits' for the multitude of adverts by running and spinning everything coming out of ITFC in a bad way if possible. It actually pisses me off a lot the manner in which a fanzine for the club likes to spin things in order to drive internet traffic, instead of supporting the team!
It's also obvious that PC is now pissed off with the majority of those he has given chances to as they are not performing well enough. He says players should be a reflection of the manager and it's clear he doesn't want to be associated with the level of work that is being put out by this squad and is demanding more.