Rangers’ New Era Under McInnes: Challenges and Changes
Emmanuel Fernandez strolled through his first season at Rangers looking every inch the modern centre-half. Calm on the ball, dominant in the air, a menace at set-pieces. A Rolls Royce in royal blue.
But even luxury models can veer off course.
Fernandez carries a habit that will not survive long under Derek McInnes: the temptation to overplay. A Cruyff turn here, a risky shimmy there. They delighted the crowd often enough last term, yet those same flourishes now drag him towards a dangerous road under a manager who has built his reputation on discipline, structure and a ruthless streak in both boxes.
McInnes will not indulge lapses in concentration. Not from his defensive pillar. Not in a season where Rangers can ill afford another false dawn.
McInnes’ hard edge meets a fragile squad
For all the noise around Ibrox this summer, and the sense that a new era has been flung into motion, the squad still looks oddly lopsided. A raft of arrivals has flooded the midfield – it feels like a million bodies through the door in that area – yet the gaps remain obvious.
That elusive creative spark, the player who can unpick a packed defence with one touch or a disguised pass, still hasn’t arrived. The concern sharpened the moment Thelo Aasgaard landed awkwardly on his shoulder in the final friendly against West Ham. His recovery in time for the opener eases the anxiety, but it doesn’t erase the problem.
There’s no natural back-up for Tuur Rommens. The wide areas look threadbare, a patchwork of stop-gaps rather than a pair of nailed-on starters. Scottish clubs live this reality every summer: European qualifiers demand early sharpness and deep squads, yet the transfer window barely has time to creak open before teams are flung into season-defining ties.
While Rangers scramble, clubs from Europe’s Big Five leagues are drifting through pre-season tours, clocking up air miles and marketing opportunities. They can wait to pluck a Nico Raskin type when it suits them. No rush, no pressure, just patience and options.
That same dynamic hangs over Mikey Moore. Tottenham have no reason to hurry his return to Govan. They want to see him in pre-season, measure his readiness, and juggle their own spending plans as they eye expensive wide targets such as Savinho. Rangers, as ever, sit on the wrong side of the food chain.
Them’s the breaks.
A new captain, an old demand
McInnes knows this landscape. He also knows Ibrox. As a player he won almost everything there was to win in Govan, part of squads that treated silverware as a habit rather than a hope. He has been blunt since walking back through the doors: Rangers players should feel uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable with standards. Uncomfortable with complacency. Uncomfortable with the idea that second place is acceptable.
If that message stings, good. The last few Rangers teams have carried questions about mentality like an unwanted tattoo. McInnes wants that scrubbed off, fast. The new captain Lawrence Shankland embodies that shift: a proven domestic finisher, a leader, and a forward who will be judged on trophies, not just goals.
The puzzle this week has been how McInnes fits Shankland into his first league XI alongside Youssef Chermiti. The answer, at least for the Tannadice opener, looks like a front two, with Shankland dropping into a slightly deeper role, linking play and hunting space between the lines.
And lurking just behind them in the pecking order is Ryan Naderi, desperate to prove he belongs in that conversation.
Naderi’s fight for a place
Naderi might be the most intriguing name on McInnes’ first teamsheet. The German striker starts ahead of both Chermiti and Bojan Miovski, who must settle for a place on the bench and the promise of minutes later on.
Rangers paid big money in January to bring Naderi from Hansa Rostock in Germany’s third tier, where he had been the main man. His start in Glasgow hinted at a clever piece of business: tall, aggressive, happy to chase hopeless balls into the channels and lead the press from the front. There is something of Kenny Miller in the way he harries defenders, only this time he could be the foil for Shankland rather than Kris Boyd.
Injury cut that first chapter short. Now, with a full pre-season behind him, Naderi has a chance to reclaim the narrative. If, as expected, Rangers’ No. 9 and No. 7 spearhead the attack, the German will again have to make his mark from the bench – but he does so against a side he has already scored on. McInnes will not ignore that.
A squad ripped up and rebuilt
The sense of déjà vu around Ibrox is hard to ignore. Twelve months ago, a different new manager, a different wave of signings and the same relentless optimism rolled into a tricky opening away day. Russell Martin’s first league match brought a flat draw at Fir Park against another debutant boss, Jens Berthel Askou, and a Motherwell team supposedly in flux.
The warning is obvious: new faces and new ideas don’t guarantee a new outcome.
This time, it is Dundee United at Tannadice, under the Friday night lights, standing in the way of McInnes’ own competitive bow. The squad has been ripped apart and reassembled at speed. Eight new players have already arrived, the latest being Olwethu Makhanya from Philadelphia Union, the South African defender checking in at Ibrox on Thursday.
He will have to wait. Atalanta loanee Ben Godfrey is set to partner Fernandez at the heart of a rebuilt backline. Behind them, £6 million goalkeeper Ivor Pandur steps into Jack Butland’s gloves, edging out Liam Kelly for the No. 1 spot.
Full-back offers a rare hint of continuity: Dujon Sterling and Rommens are expected to start, familiar faces in a side otherwise full of moving parts.
In midfield, Dan Neil and Cammy Devlin form the engine room. Both arrive with reputations for energy and bite – Neil from Sunderland, Devlin from Hearts – and both know first impressions in this arena last a long time.
Out wide, necessity drives opportunity. Aasgaard cut short his post-World Cup break to force his way into contention and, with Rangers still hunting specialist wingers, he should be rewarded with a start on the left. Mohamed Diomande may be pushed to the right, another central player shuffled wide to plug a gap.
Touchline tension and a thin margin for error
McInnes will at least be on the touchline to watch all this unfold. He has appealed a four-game SFA ban for comments made at the end of last season while in charge of Hearts, buying himself a stay of execution. It comes with a warning: he must be on his best behaviour.
Nick Walsh takes charge in the middle, with Calum Spence and Jonathan Bell running the lines and Peter Stuart as fourth official. Steven McLean heads up VAR, assisted by Gary Hilland. The cast list is complete; the scrutiny will be forensic.
It feels like yesterday that Danny Rohl’s Rangers side played out a dead rubber against Falkirk to close the previous campaign. That chapter is over. McInnes now carries the burden and the expectation, Shankland leads the team out, and a fanbase battered by near-misses demands something more substantial than promise.
The dawn has definitely broken for this new-look Rangers. The only question is whether it brings a fresh day – or just another cruel imitation of the seasons that went before.
