Rangers New Era: McInnes and the Challenge Ahead
The new Rangers era has barely taken its first breath and already there’s a fault line running through it.
Derek McInnes strides back into Ibrox as manager with a bulging transfer ledger, a new captain in Lawrence Shankland and the kind of demands that made him a serial winner in the 1990s. He wants standards. He wants edge. He wants his players to feel uncomfortable.
One of the first to be shoved out of any comfort zone will be Emmanuel “Manny” Fernandez.
Fernandez walking a tightrope
Fernandez was one of the few unqualified successes of last season. The big centre-half looked every inch the modern defender: calm on the ball, happy to step out, dominant in both boxes. When Rangers needed a set-piece threat, he arrived like a wrecking ball. When they needed composure, he often supplied it.
But there’s a flip side. The Cruyff turns. The little feints on the edge of his own box. The occasional lapse that turns a quiet afternoon into a fire drill.
That’s where the danger lies now. Record Sport’s Scott McDermott has already warned that those moments of indulgence will not wash with McInnes. This is a manager who built his playing career on reliability and relentlessness. He will not tolerate a centre-half turning into Johan Cruyff on his six-yard line.
Fernandez remains central to the project. Atalanta loanee Ben Godfrey is expected to line up beside him in a revamped backline, with £6m keeper Ivor Pandur taking over from Jack Butland behind them. It’s a fresh spine, but the message is old-school: defend first, decorate later.
A squad rebuilt, but still with gaps
For all the business done, Rangers still feel incomplete.
Midfielders have flooded through the door, almost to the point of parody. Dan Neil from Sunderland and Cammy Devlin from Hearts will anchor the engine room and are tipped to start the opener, tasked with setting the tone for McInnes’ new-look side.
Yet the creative spark remains in short supply. That elusive X-factor – the player who can unpick a low block with a single touch – continues to evade the recruitment team. The problem sharpened when Thelo Aasgaard took a shoulder knock in the final friendly against West Ham, exposing just how fragile the attacking options out wide really are.
Aasgaard has recovered and is expected to start on one flank at Tannadice, with Djeidi Gassama likely on the other. Mohamed Diomande may also be asked to work from the right. It feels like a patchwork solution rather than a finished article.
Behind them, the full-backs at least bring some continuity. Dujon Sterling and Tuur Rommens should start, Rommens still without a natural back-up. That remains another unresolved issue in a window that has already seen eight new faces arrive, including Philadelphia Union defender Olwethu Makhanya, who must wait for his chance from the bench.
The Scottish transfer bind
All of this plays out against a familiar Scottish backdrop. Clubs like Rangers live in a summer chokehold.
European qualifiers come early and mean everything. The money, the prestige, the season’s entire financial shape can hinge on nights that arrive before squads are fully built. Managers are forced to demand fast, decisive transfer work just as the window opens.
While Rangers scramble to assemble a team ready to go in July, clubs in Europe’s Big Five leagues are boarding long-haul flights for glossy pre-season tours. They can take their time, eye a Nico Raskin type for weeks, then strike when it suits them. No panic, no rush.
It’s the same tension around Mikey Moore. Tottenham have no reason to hurry his return to Govan. They can watch him in pre-season, weigh up their options and only then decide whether to sanction another loan while they chase big-money targets like Savinho. Rangers wait. That’s the reality.
Them’s the breaks.
McInnes demands discomfort
McInnes knows all of this. He also knows what it takes to win at Ibrox.
As a player, he lifted just about everything there was to lift in a Rangers shirt during that trophy-laden 1990s spell. He wants to recreate that mentality, that ruthless expectation that second best is a failure, not a near miss.
If that means his players feel uneasy, so be it. In fact, that’s the point. He has spoken of the need for discomfort, for an environment where nobody feels safe enough to coast. It’s a direct challenge to the lingering questions over Rangers’ mentality in recent years.
He will be on the touchline to drive that message home, having appealed a four-game SFA ban for comments made at the end of last season when he was Hearts boss. Nick Walsh has the whistle at Tannadice, with Calum Spence and Jonathan Bell running the lines and Peter Stuart as fourth official. Steven McLean takes charge of VAR, assisted by Gary Hilland.
McInnes will need no reminder of how quickly the mood can sour if this opening night goes wrong.
Shankland, Chermiti… and Naderi waiting
Up front, the focus has been on how McInnes fits his new captain into the system.
Lawrence Shankland will lead the team out at Tannadice, expected to play slightly deeper in a front two alongside Youssef Chermiti. That pairing has dominated the build-up, and understandably so: a proven Scottish scorer alongside a powerful forward still finding his feet.
But lurking in the background is Ryan Naderi, the German striker who arrived from Hansa Rostock in January for big money, only for injury to derail his start in a Rangers shirt.
When he did play, Naderi offered exactly what McInnes likes: physical presence in both boxes, relentless running, a willingness to chase hopeless balls and turn them into half-chances. There’s a touch of Kenny Miller about him, the way he leads the press and does the dirty work for a more clinical partner.
He starts this season behind Shankland and Chermiti, named on the bench for the opener. Yet he has history in this fixture, having scored against Dundee United last season. If, as expected, Rangers go with the No. 9 and No. 7 from the start, Naderi will be desperate to barge his way into McInnes’ plans the moment he steps onto the pitch.
A familiar sense of déjà vu
All of this is wrapped in a nagging sense of repetition.
It feels like only yesterday that Danny Rohl’s Rangers side drifted through a dead rubber against Falkirk to close out the campaign. Another season over, another reset promised.
Now the scenery has changed again. Rohl is gone, McInnes is in the hot seat, and the squad has been torn up and stitched back together. Eight signings, a new captain, a new goalkeeper, a new centre-back pairing. And yet the questions sound awfully familiar.
Last year, Rangers also headed into the opening league fixture with a new manager, a cluster of signings and a wave of optimism. Russell Martin’s first league game brought a flat draw at Fir Park against Motherwell, led by his former team-mate Jens Berthel Askou. Motherwell were meant to be in flux; Rangers were meant to be ready. Hindsight has not been kind to that narrative.
Now Dundee United provide the first test. Thelo Aasgaard has cut short his post-World Cup holiday to force his way into contention. New faces like Ross McCrorie, Vanja Dragojevic, Neil, Makhanya and others wait for their Light Blue bows from the bench. The kick-off at 8pm feels like a starting gun on something bigger than just a league campaign.
Is this the dawn McInnes promises, a hard-edged new Rangers shaped in his image? Or another false start dressed up as a fresh beginning?
The answer will come soon enough. For Fernandez and the rest, the margin for error has already shrunk.
