Rangers' New Dawn Under Derek McInnes: Key Changes and Challenges
Emmanuel Fernandez spent last season gliding through games at Ibrox like a centre-half built in a custom shop. Tall, composed, elegant on the ball, he looked every inch the modern defender. He dominated his box, threatened in the other, and at times made the rough-and-tumble of Scottish football look almost too easy.
That’s the problem.
Every so often, the concentration dipped. A loose touch here, a risky decision there. Moments that were shrugged off under the previous regime will not pass so quietly now. Not with Derek McInnes in charge.
Fernandez and the dangerous road
Record Sport’s Scott McDermott has already sounded the alarm. The Emmanuel Fernandez who can cruise through a game like a Rolls Royce is the same Emmanuel Fernandez who will occasionally try a Cruyff turn on the edge of his own area. Entertaining? Yes. Acceptable? Not to a manager who built his playing career on ruthlessness and reliability.
McInnes wants a backline he can trust. He has Atalanta loanee Ben Godfrey lined up to sit beside Fernandez at the heart of a revamped defence, £6 million man Ivor Pandur behind them as the new No. 1. This is not a playground for indulgent defending. One Cruyff turn too many and the big centre-half could find himself on the wrong side of his manager’s patience.
The message is clear: keep the poise, lose the lapses.
A squad rebuilt, but still with gaps
Rangers have been busy. Eight new faces through the door already, and still the squad doesn’t feel complete.
The midfield has been flooded. Dan Neil from Sunderland and Cammy Devlin from Hearts will form the new engine room, tasked with giving Rangers a harder edge and a quicker tempo. Yet for all the bodies in the middle, the team still looks light in key areas.
That elusive creative spark remains high on the shopping list, especially after Thelo Aasgaard’s recent shoulder scare underlined how fragile the options are in the final third. A back-up for Tuur Rommens is still needed. Both wings remain a puzzle McInnes hasn’t solved, even with Djeidi Gassama and Aasgaard expected to start out wide tonight.
Scottish clubs know this dance all too well. The European qualifiers come early, the money they bring in is vital, and squads need to be ready before the transfer market has properly woken up. It’s a vicious circle that never seems to break. While Rangers scramble to lock in signings and fitness for competitive action in July and August, clubs in Europe’s Big Five leagues are easing through pre-season tours, picking off targets like Nico Raskin whenever it suits them.
Tottenham, for instance, have no incentive to rush Mikey Moore back to Govan. They can look at him in pre-season, weigh up their options, and only then decide whether to sanction another loan while they chase expensive wide men such as Savinho. Rangers just have to wait. Them’s the breaks.
McInnes, discomfort and demands
What Rangers do not have to wait for is a change in mentality. McInnes has already started on that.
As a player, he won almost everything there was to win at Ibrox during the trophy-laden 1990s. He knows what a ruthless dressing room looks like, how it feels when winning is not celebrated but expected. That is the standard he wants to restore, and he is not interested in making anyone feel cosy along the way.
He has told his players they should feel “uncomfortable.” That edge, that tension, is the point. This is a club that has been accused, fairly and repeatedly, of lacking the mentality to sustain title challenges and handle pressure moments. McInnes wants to rip that reputation up, and if that means some of his squad squirm under the demands, so be it.
He will at least be there to drive it from the touchline. His four-game SFA ban for comments made as Hearts boss at the end of last season has been appealed, allowing him to take his place in the dugout tonight. Nick Walsh has the whistle, with Calum Spence and Jonathan Bell on the lines, Peter Stuart as fourth official, and Steven McLean in the VAR hot seat alongside Gary Hilland.
McInnes will need to keep his emotions in check. His players will not get the same luxury.
New captain, new axis, same pressure
The last time Rangers opened a league campaign, the story was familiar: new manager, raft of signings, fresh optimism, and an away day laced with danger. Russell Martin’s first league game ended in a flat draw at Fir Park against Jens Berthel Askou’s Motherwell, a result that looked even worse with hindsight.
Here we are again. New man in the hot seat. New squad. New hope. Same jeopardy.
This time, it is Dundee United at Tannadice on opening night. The curtain only just came down on the Danny Rohl era with that dead rubber against Falkirk, but the cast has been almost completely rewritten. Lawrence Shankland will walk out as captain, the symbol of McInnes’ new Rangers.
The big tactical question all week has been how McInnes fits Shankland and Youssef Chermiti into the same side. The answer, at least for now, looks like a front two. Shankland is expected to operate slightly deeper, linking play and dropping into pockets, with Chermiti occupying the last line.
Naderi waits in the wings
That leaves Ryan Naderi watching on – for now.
The German striker, signed in January from Hansa Rostock after lighting up Germany’s third tier, showed enough in his brief early spell in a Light Blue shirt to suggest he can be a major asset. Injury cut that promise short, but the impression lingered: tall, aggressive, a constant menace in both boxes. He chased down lost causes, led the press, and played with the kind of selfless energy that drew comparisons to Kenny Miller in his pomp alongside Kris Boyd.
Tonight, he has been given a nod of a different kind. Naderi starts ahead of both Chermiti and Bojan Miovski in McInnes’ first league XI, a bold call that tells its own story. Miovski and Chermiti will sit on the bench, desperate to get on, but Naderi has the first crack at making himself indispensable.
If, as expected over the season, the No. 9 and No. 7 form the preferred front pairing, Naderi knows he may have to live off cameos. That makes these early opportunities all the more precious, especially against a Dundee United side he scored against last term. Deliver now, and McInnes has a decision to make. Falter, and the queue behind him is long.
New faces, old expectations
Behind Naderi, the new spine is already taking shape.
Pandur has been handed the gloves, replacing Jack Butland and edging out Liam Kelly. At full-back, Dujon Sterling and Rommens provide the continuity, familiar faces in a defence otherwise reshaped. Godfrey and Fernandez will be expected to strike up an instant understanding, one bringing Serie A steel, the other that Rolls Royce glide – as long as he keeps it simple when it matters.
Neil and Devlin will snap and shuttle in midfield, charged with giving Rangers both bite and balance. Ahead of them, Aasgaard – who cut short his post-World Cup holiday to force his way into contention – has recovered from that worrying shoulder knock and should start on the left. With the club still scouring the market for wide players, this is his chance to prove he can be more than a stop-gap. Gassama is set to patrol the opposite flank, with Mohamed Diomande another option to drift in from the right.
On the bench, new signings Olwethu Makhanya, Ross McCrorie, Dan Neil and Vanja Dragojevic all wait for their first taste of competitive action in front of the Rangers support. Their time will come. In Scotland, it always does quicker than you think.
The stakes are obvious. European qualifiers loom, the league race will not wait, and a support that has seen too many false dawns will not tolerate another season of excuses.
So here it is: a new dawn for Rangers under Derek McInnes. The squad has been ripped apart and reassembled, the captaincy has changed hands, the mentality is under reconstruction.
Is this the day the cycle finally breaks, or just another opening night that promises more than it delivers?
