Rangers' Injury Crisis: McInnes Responds with Transfer Plans

Derek McInnes admits Rangers are “playing with fire” at the back and scrambling for firepower up front after a brutal injury double hit his squad at the worst possible time.

The manager confirmed the club are moving quickly to bring in a new striker after Youssef Chermiti suffered a serious knee injury, while left-back Tuur Rommens has also been ruled out.

Both went down in the same defeat by Hibernian on Saturday. Both now leave sizeable holes in a squad already stretched.

Chermiti blow forces transfer rethink

Chermiti, 22, has sustained anterior cruciate ligament damage and faces a long spell out. He will see a specialist in London, with surgery likely next week.

The timing is savage. Only days earlier, McInnes revealed a substantial bid for the Portugal Under-21 forward had been rejected, with Galatasaray heavily linked with the former Everton striker.

Now the entire plan around him has been ripped up.

“Obviously, really disappointing for ourselves,” McInnes said. “Selfishly, he's a big part of what we wanted to do this season and he's obviously a talented boy.

“For Youssef himself, obviously he's very young. It'll be difficult for him to accept and understand what's happened to him.”

The manager did not dwell on the rejected offer.

“Obviously it was a big number that was reportedly bid for him. I don't know exactly what the figure was. Obviously the club rejected that. It's neither here nor there now, to be honest. It's done.”

What matters now is the response.

“The only saving grace from our point of view as a club is the fact it's happened in a transfer window and we've got the opportunity to react to that,” McInnes added.

“We are obviously looking at maybe strengthening that area of the pitch. We're trying to be quite proactive with that and seeing what is available. Number nines are normally the most difficult ones to get.”

Defensive gaps and a warning

As if losing his main striker wasn’t enough, McInnes must now cope without Rommens for up to eight weeks after the left-back picked up a groin injury in the same match.

That absence exposes a long-standing concern.

“We don't have a left-footed defender in the building,” he admitted. “We're keen to try and get that resolved as quickly as possible.

“With the numbers we've got there, we are kind of playing with fire. Defensively, it's always been a bit of a concern. I always thought we were short of numbers there.

“We all know what we need but acting really swiftly would help matters.”

A new left-back is on the shopping list. So are wingers.

“Strengthening defensively and in wide areas was the priority,” McInnes said. “We're trying to bring wingers in. It's in the hands of the recruitment team to try and get that over the line. Nothing's been finalised with anything yet.”

Brentford’s Jayden Meghoma, 20, has been linked with a second loan stint at Ibrox after last season’s spell, while PSV Eindhoven winger Couhaib Driouech is being strongly touted for a permanent move.

Driouech deal “quite far down the line”

Talk around Driouech has intensified, and McInnes did little to cool it.

“We've been linked with a lot of players,” he said. “That one's gained a bit of momentum and we are quite far down the line with that but I don't know where it's at currently. All these things are still ongoing.”

The backdrop to all of this? A huge European night.

Rangers trail Jagiellonia Bialystok 2-1 from the first leg of their Europa League third-round qualifier and must turn it around at home on Thursday. They will do so without their planned focal point in attack and with a patched-up defence.

McInnes wanted this window to refine his squad. Circumstance has turned it into an emergency rebuild.