No excuses for Rangers as McInnes era is poised to begin

Image source, SNS Image caption, The Derek McInnes era at Rangers kicks off with a Scottish Premiership curtain-raiser at Dundee United on Friday (20:00 BST) By Nick McPheat BBC Sport Scotland Published 1 hour ago The climactic end to the Scottish Premiership, coupled with the summer of football and managerial upheaval that followed, has made it somewhat easy to forget that Rangers finished last term third. A lot has happened since head coach Danny Rohl, who has been replaced by Derek McInnes, watched his team limp to the finish after their season unravelled in a post-split collapse. The memories of the Ibrox side's demanding fanbase are not that short, though. They are expecting far better from a club that followed up a reported £40m spending spree with a second successive trophyless season. But as the McInnes era prepares to kick into gear, are those same supporters heading into the new campaign with fewer reasons to fear more failure? How many midfielders do Rangers need after busy summer? Published 1 day ago Holders St Mirren visit Rangers in League Cup last 16 Published 1 day ago Who has your Premiership club brought in & let go this summer? Published 2 days ago McInnes the man to stabilise turbulence? To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This video can not be played Figure caption, McInnes the man to take Rangers forward - McCrorie It was only a year ago that Russell Martin had just started his troublesome 17-match reign as Rangers head coach. Now Leicester City boss, Martin was sacked after a brutal end to his brief spell. And after dragging the side back into the Premiership title fight before it all went wrong, Rohl too has been and gone, leaving for Red Bull Salzburg in June. The nature of Rangers' end to last season - their hopes ending with four straight post-split defeats - meant Rohl would have been up against it with the fans on day one of the 2026-27 campaign. Any credit the German had banked was diminished and a stuttering start to the new season would inevitably have led to the familiar social media meme poking fun at the vicious Rangers cycle once again reaching the managerial departure stage. A "mutual agreement" that resulted in Rohl heading to Salzburg should help the Ibrox club avoid the recent trend of ripping everything up and starting again in the autumn, with McInnes tasked with taking the team forward. Some have viewed the former Aberdeen boss, who turned down interest from Rangers in 2017, as a sensible appointment for years, while others have had doubts. But taking Hearts to within about 10 minutes of a historic Scottish top-flight title went some way to unifying the view that the 55-year-old is now the right man. "The timing's perfect," former Rangers midfielder Andy Halliday told BBC Scotland. "McInnes will probably admit himself he's now a more well-rounded manager than he was back in 2017. "He's been through a title race, he's had ups and downs throughout that, so I think he's in the