Derek McInnes Set to Return as Rangers Manager

While Scotland lives and breathes the World Cup, another storyline refuses to quieten down. Derek McInnes, the man who dragged Hearts to the brink of a first league title in 66 years, looks set to walk back through the doors of Ibrox – this time as Rangers manager.

If it happens, it lands as yet another jolt in a Scottish football year already overflowing with shocks and plot twists.

From almost-champions to the club he beat

Barely a month has passed since Hearts fell agonisingly short, losing the title to Martin O'Neill’s Celtic in the dying minutes of the season. McInnes had taken them to their best-ever points tally, finishing above Rangers and pushing a more powerful Celtic squad right to the wire.

Now he could be heading to the club he left as a player in 2000, with the path seemingly cleared by Danny Rohl’s impending move to RB Salzburg. A manager who outpunched Rangers last season may soon be tasked with fixing them.

The irony will not be lost on anyone at Ibrox.

‘Perfect fit’ for a fragile club

Tony Docherty knows McInnes as well as anyone. They were joined at the hip for well over a decade at St Johnstone and Aberdeen, then again at Kilmarnock. When Docherty talks about McInnes, it comes from years in the same dugout.

"It's a brilliant opportunity – if it presents itself," he told the Scottish Football Podcast, weighing his words but not his conviction. If the deal goes through as expected, Docherty sees only one outcome.

"I think it's the perfect fit for Rangers to be totally honest."

Rangers have been accused of lacking steel and conviction for years. Title races have slipped away. Splits have exposed soft centres. Rohl himself called the final stretch of last season “five cup finals” – his side lost four of them and stumbled to a distant third, behind Hearts and Celtic.

Docherty is adamant McInnes brings something different. Edge. Relentlessness. A refusal to disappear.

"Derek is a hugely competitive person," he said. "You saw that last year, when people thought his team were going to disappear. Purely through him and the recruitment he did they were competitive right the way through."

For Rangers, that trait has been missing for too long.

Mentality over medals

On paper, McInnes’ trophy cabinet looks modest for a man now being lined up for Ibrox. One League Cup with Aberdeen in 2014. A Championship title with Kilmarnock. No league titles as a manager. No Scottish Cup triumphs.

But context matters.

At Pittodrie he spent years running into Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic, losing cup finals and league campaigns to a side operating on a different financial planet. With Kilmarnock, he engineered Old Firm scalps and a route into European football in just his second season. At Hearts, he constructed a title challenge that went to the last breath against O’Neill’s Celtic.

His career has been built on punching upwards, stretching squads that, on paper, should not have lived with the teams they were chasing.

Rory Loy, who wore the Rangers shirt himself, sees that as exactly what Ibrox needs.

“To think three or four weeks ago, some Rangers fans – given the decline after the split – were looking to move him [Rohl] on," he said on the Scottish Football Podcast. Now the club look set to collect a fee for Rohl and reinvest it in McInnes.

"To get money for him and to use that money to recruit Derek McInnes, I don't think it could have fallen more favourably for Rangers.

"The one thing Derek McInnes will bring above all else is the one thing that's been levelled at Rangers for the last decade – that's what is between the ears, that's mentality."

O’Neill at Celtic, McInnes at Rangers?

The backdrop could hardly be more compelling. Martin O’Neill arrives at Celtic with a league and Scottish Cup double already in his back pocket from last season. Seven wins on the spin to snatch the title, a run Loy called “unbelievable”.

O’Neill looks every inch the modern Celtic powerhouse: proven, ruthless, and already a trophy winner. McInnes, if he walks into Ibrox, will be trying to stop that momentum almost from a standing start.

"His one issue may be is he's coming up against a powerhouse when it comes to these things in Martin O'Neill," Loy warned. The Celtic manager has the medals and the aura to match.

Even so, Loy is convinced that last season’s collapse under Rohl would not have happened with McInnes in charge.

"I genuinely believe that if Derek McInnes was the Rangers manager going into the split, they don't collapse. They might not have won it – but I don't think they collapse. They take it to the last day at the very least."

That is the crux of the argument for McInnes. Not that he guarantees titles, but that he guarantees a fight.

A title race built on scars

Docherty has seen that fight up close for 18 years.

"Derek's strength is his longevity. He's been a manager for 18 years. For 15 years I was assistant to him. It's incredible to have that longevity and that amount of success."

Longevity at the sharp end of Scottish football is not an accident. It comes from adaptability, from handling pressure, from taking squads who are told they’re not good enough and dragging them into contention anyway.

If, as expected, O’Neill settles in at Celtic and McInnes crosses the city divide to Rangers, Docherty can already picture the season ahead.

"If it does happen and Martin O'Neill is in place at Celtic and Derek McInnes is in place at Rangers it's going to be one hell of a title race this year," he said.

Celtic, armed with O’Neill’s momentum. Rangers, potentially reborn under a manager who has spent his career chasing them from below. Hearts, still stung by how close they came under McInnes. A league that already feels like it’s running hot, before a ball has even been kicked.

Scottish football has delivered drama all year. If McInnes does walk back into Ibrox, the next chapter might be the most combustible yet.