Rangers' Stuttering Start Under McInnes: A Long Summer Ahead

Derek McInnes walked into Tannadice with a fresh mandate and a familiar problem. A year on from Russell Martin’s furious opening-day inquest, Rangers again started the league campaign with a stutter rather than a statement – another 1-1 draw, this time at Dundee United, and another night of questions about what this team actually is.

The tone, though, was different. No hairdryer, no public shaming. Just a manager who knows this is only the first step in a long summer rebuild.

A flat start, a warning sign

Rangers never really settled in a disjointed first half. Dundee United snapped into challenges, squeezed the pitch and looked the more cohesive side. The reward came with Lachlan Rose’s opener, a goal that exposed exactly what Andy Halliday later highlighted: Rangers didn’t look compact, no matter how many defenders McInnes had on the pitch.

The back line, with debutant Ben Godfrey at its heart, struggled to hold shape. The distances between units were wrong, the gaps too inviting. United’s forwards and midfielders found room to play, and Rose punished them.

McInnes could hardly claim he hadn’t been warned. This was the risk of a team still learning each other’s runs, habits and triggers. A new manager, a new structure, several new faces – and a venue that rarely offers gentle introductions.

A response, but not a revival

After the break, Rangers finally stirred. The tempo lifted, the passes bit a little harder, and Thelo Aasgaard began to drag them up the pitch with sharper movement and cleaner touches.

The equaliser, when it came, felt like a release rather than a turning point. Aasgaard’s finish brought Rangers level and briefly hinted at a late surge. The game opened up, space appeared, and United were pushed back.

Yet the pressure never quite turned into control. The final ball lacked conviction, the wide threat never truly materialised, and the supposed big-club authority failed to take hold. For all their second-half improvement, Rangers did not look like a side who believed they would inevitably win.

Instead, they almost lost it.

Jesse Randall’s late chance – a dinked, tame effort straight at another debutant, goalkeeper Ivor Pandur – underlined how fragile Rangers remained. One moment of composure from the Dundee United forward and McInnes’ first night might have ended in outright defeat.

McInnes calls for patience, pundits echo the line

McInnes, speaking afterwards, refused to be drawn into any early-season drama.

“It’s one game,” he told Sky Sports. “We are going to get better as we go along.”

The message was simple: no panic, no sweeping judgements, not when the squad is still incomplete and the ideas are still bedding in.

He didn’t sugar-coat the performance either.

“It’s disappointing – we’ve dropped a couple of points, but we weren’t good enough to get all three. We’ve got to have more trust in what we’re doing, keep our shoulder to the wheel and do simple things better.”

Former Rangers striker Steven Thompson struck a similar note of calm on BBC Radio Scotland. A point away at a difficult venue, he argued, is not a crisis. Not in the first game. Not when more signings are expected and more work on the training ground is guaranteed.

“He will have learned a lot from his players tonight,” Thompson said. That, in many ways, was the night’s real value for McInnes.

A glimpse of the new Rangers – and their flaws

If this was a first look at the McInnes blueprint, it came with both promise and concern.

Pandur in goal. Godfrey at centre-back. Cammy Devlin and Lawrence Shankland starting, both familiar to the manager from Hearts. Aasgaard, the standout in attack. From the bench came summer arrivals Dan Neil and Ross McCrorie. The spine is changing, the personality of the team with it.

There were flashes of what this side might become: more robust in midfield, more direct in their running, more willing to mix control with aggression. But those flashes never formed a full picture.

Halliday, watching on for Sportsound, zeroed in on the structural issue.

“No matter how many defenders you play with, the main fundamental is being compact, and I thought Rangers were the furthest thing from compact,” he said. His verdict on the individual displays was just as stark: aside from Aasgaard, Dundee United had the best performers on the pitch.

Rangers, he concluded, are “a work in progress” and still short of the level required. McInnes would struggle to argue.

Injuries, visas and a missing winger

The problems are not just tactical. They are practical.

Godfrey, one of the key defensive additions, went off with a hamstring complaint. New signing Olwethu Makhanya may not receive his visa in time for Thursday’s Europa League qualifier away to Jagiellonia Bialystok. That leaves McInnes short at the back for a high-stakes European tie he can ill afford to take lightly.

Yet it’s out wide where he sounds most urgent. Djeidi Gassama started on the left at Tannadice and failed to impose himself. Hooked at half-time, he watched as Rangers finished the game with Mohamed Diomande and Aasgaard operating in narrower roles, leaving the flanks underpowered and predictable.

McInnes spelled it out on Sky.

As the game stretched, he saw spaces to exploit but lacked the players to truly attack them. He wants a winger who can go past defenders, unsettle back lines, and put opponents on the back foot. Right now, his forwards are starved of that kind of service.

“We’re working hard and we know what we want,” he said. The recruitment brief could hardly be clearer.

A slow burn, or a warning shot?

So Rangers leave Tannadice with a point, a handful of debut impressions, a minor injury scare and a to-do list that grows by the day. No meltdown, no early-season verdict, but no disguising the fact this was not the statement McInnes wanted to make.

The league table will barely twitch after one round of fixtures. The judgement on this new era will come later – after more signings, more sessions, more nights under the lights.

The question, as the games start to stack up and the demands of Europe bite, is simple: how quickly can McInnes turn “work in progress” into a team that looks and plays like Rangers?