Rangers Exit Europa League as Pressure Mounts on McInnes
The boos started long before the final whistle and the exits emptied just as quickly. By the time the referee brought it to an end, the damage – and the verdict – felt done.
Rangers are out of the Europa League before the play-off round, beaten 3-2 on aggregate by Jagiellonia Bialystok after a 1-1 draw at Ibrox, and Derek McInnes has now made the worst four-game start of any permanent Rangers manager.
The pressure isn’t creeping up on him. It’s already here.
A club built for Europe, a team not ready
McInnes did not hide behind excuses. He knows exactly what this club expects and how far short his team is falling.
"The club is built for the Champions League and Europa League, but I don't think the team is ready for it and it pains me to say it," he admitted. He has nine new signings in the door and millions already spent, yet he still sees a squad short of the level required.
"We need to get more quality, we need to get more confidence into the team," he said. "That is the job I came into Rangers to do. Rangers finishing third last season, what was served up wasn't good enough. We have to get things moving in the right way quickly."
The word “quickly” now feels loaded. Last season, Russell Martin’s stumbling start never recovered and the axe fell in early October. McInnes is already walking a similar path, only with a more expensive squad and a fanbase that has run out of patience for transition seasons.
He knew Jagiellonia were no mugs – "a decent team with some good players" and "well coached" – but he did not dress up the reality.
"Rangers at their best should be winning this."
Forty-five minutes of promise, forty-five of chaos
The pattern is becoming familiar. Bright spells, then a collapse. Moments, but never a full match.
McInnes sees a continuation of the flaws that dragged Rangers to third last term: an inability to stitch together a convincing 90 minutes. On Thursday, the first half offered some encouragement. The second half undid it.
The fans’ verdict at full-time was loud and clear.
"I think it was justified, to be honest," McInnes said of the boos. "What we served up in the second half was not good enough.
"In the four games we've had, there's been some good moments, but it's not been good enough and certainly not a strong enough 90-minute performance.
"It is not great to watch. My team go from some good highs in the first half to being as poor as we were in the second half and you have to say we didn't do enough."
The turning point, in the manager’s eyes, came with his own decision. At half-time he hooked Thelo Aasgaard, sent on full-back Ross McCrorie and switched from a back three to a back four. The plan was to get the wingers higher and more involved. He felt Aasgaard, the Norway midfielder, "was not getting involved enough".
The theory sounded logical. The reality? Rangers lost their grip on the game.
Former midfielder Andy Halliday, watching on for BBC Radio Scotland’s Sportsound, did not sugar-coat it.
"The reasoning makes sense, but it didn't work, it's as simple as that," he said. "The only thing I would challenge about that is I thought [Djeidi] Gassama and [Daisuke] Yokota got loads of the ball relatively high up in the first half.
"They lost all control without that extra body in midfield."
The shape change was supposed to tilt the tie in Rangers’ favour. Instead, it stripped away their control, left gaps, and fed the anxiety already simmering in the stands.
Injuries, imbalance and a frantic market
As if a European exit was not enough, Rangers arrived at this tie with the kind of news that makes a manager wince. Youssef Chermiti, one of the few genuine saleable assets and a focal point in attack, has been ruled out long term with a knee injury – just after the club had knocked back a big-money offer for the 22-year-old.
The plan for the window was already busy: wingers, defenders, depth across the pitch. Now a new striker has been added to the shopping list. McInnes insists the club are "working so hard to get the necessary type of players", with PSV Eindhoven winger Couhaib Driouech lined up as the next arrival.
Even so, the squad looks skewed and short in key areas. Halliday did not hide his concern.
He believes the group "shouldn't be that imbalanced this late into the transfer window" and rattled off the gaps: "three centre-halves, one left-back, two, arguably, three wingers".
The indictment cut deeper when he turned to the games already played.
"But the current squad that's available should be enough to beat Dundee United, it should be enough to beat Hibs and, to be honest, it should be enough to beat Jagiellonia Bialystok," he said.
Recruitment might explain some of the structural issues. It does not excuse failing to beat sides Rangers expect to sweep aside.
The consequence of Thursday’s defeat is a drop into the Europa Conference League play-off against Jablonec of the Czech Republic – a competition and opponent that underline how far away the Champions League feels from Govan right now.
Shankland feels the weight
If McInnes is under scrutiny, so too is his captain. Lawrence Shankland arrived as the proven goalscorer, the man he trusted at Hearts, the partnership Rangers hoped would translate instantly into success in Glasgow.
So far, it has not clicked. The armband has come with a different kind of burden.
Former Rangers striker Steven Thompson believes Shankland is already discovering how heavy the shirt can feel.
"It's the weight of playing for Rangers, the weight of not having the start that he wanted, and the weight of taking a bad touch," Thompson said.
"At previous clubs, if you take a bad touch and give it away, you might get a few pelters. Here tonight, when Lawrence Shankland's link-up play wasn't that good or he should've had a shot when he didn't, they are on you and it is going to take him a bit to get used to that I think. It's not physical, it's mental."
Every miscontrol, every missed decision, is amplified. When the team is struggling and the captain is searching for form, the scrutiny doubles.
A fanbase split – and seething
Outside the dressing room, the debate is already raging. Patience is thin, and the opinions are getting sharper.
Simon has seen enough: he "wanted to give a manager time" but would "cut my losses and get rid of McInnes now". He never believed McInnes was right for the job and now feels "he's proving me right, big time. Spending a fortune and making us much worse."
Alan is just as blunt. "No more excuses. McInnes is proving that he is not up to the job."
Others urge calm. Jonny points to the squad, not just the man in the dugout. "Folk saying McInnes should be sacked need to calm down. Look at the squad. Who would do well with it? Give the man time. He'll sort us in time."
The anger, though, keeps bubbling up. Kris asks if McInnes has had a single match yet "where his side haven't been booed off the park?"
Alex looks ahead and sees only disappointment: "I foresee another trophyless season ahead for Rangers – no cohesion, no fight, no skill, nothing. Rangers are woeful."
Kevin goes further back in time for his comparison, and it is not flattering. "Rangers look as bad as they did under Mark Warburton in the Championship. In fact, that team would thump this one."
This is the backdrop McInnes now works against: a support split between those who want him gone already and those who think the problems run far deeper than the manager.
Rangers will now try to salvage European football in the Conference League and patch up a transfer window that still looks incomplete. McInnes insists he came to Ibrox to raise standards, restore authority and drag the club back towards the levels its history demands.
Four games in, with the team short of quality, short of belief and already out of the Europa League, the question is no longer what he wants to build.
It’s how long he’ll be given to build it.
