There is obviously a lot to chew through after Derek McInnes’s competitive debut as Rangers manager at Tannadice. As we know, the result did not go Rangers’ way and, frankly, neither did the performance. Ibrox Noise has been at pains to point out just how early in progress this all is. Our expectations are not terribly high right now. We are willing and patient to give McInnes and this whole new regime a chance and time. These things are extremely important when it comes to such an overhaul of a club. Essentially, there is a new board, new management and an evolving squad.
McInnes got everything wrong
However, that does not change the fact that everything was wrong at Tannadice. It was a poor start for McInnes. We love the boy, wish him total success and we are behind him. However, he made mistakes all evening and got the whole thing wrong, just as badly as his predecessor did. The starting selection alone had alarm bells ringing. Ibrox Noise will always be honest. We called out the starting selection that McInnes made from the word go. Seeing Naderi, Aasgaard and Gassama in the starting XI did not fill us with an awful lot of glee. Ditto Diomande, who offers very little.
In Thelo’s case, in all fairness, he did at least score the equalising goal. He produced probably the best performance of the evening, which was not saying an awful lot. One early promising run looked bright, but he faded considerably after that before finally getting that equalising goal. However, he was by no means alone in failing to deliver on the evening. Cammy Devlin’s preseason brightness disappeared to nothing. The former Hearts midfielder looked completely out of his depth in the Rangers shirt.
Rangers’ defence was all at sea
The defence was all at sea, with Tuur Rommens having an uncharacteristically poor match. He looked a shadow of the player who plied his trade last season. In the middle, neither defender looked particularly confident. Manny Fernandez was all over the place as well. Meanwhile, Godfrey looked more than a touch like a rabbit in headlights. Dujon Sterling did all right at right back, but nothing breathtaking.
As we say, in midfield, Devlin struggled hugely. Diomande lost his runner constantly and was clearly being extremely lazy, to say the least. Meanwhile, Aasgaard was the only one who tried to make things happen, even if his level just was not up to it.
A bewildering attacking selection
The selection up front was bewildering. Gassama was absolutely and utterly out of his depth, as per usual, offering absolutely nothing. McInnes rightly took him off. The same applied to another bizarre selection in Ryan Naderi. We did not understand why he started. He had offered absolutely nothing in preseason. Nothing justified his selection on Derek McInnes’s competitive debut.
Poor Lawrence Shankland was the only one trying to make things happen at the very top of the pitch. However, everything he was doing was being ignored or missed by his teammates. He is a class act and is clearly desperate and willing to work hard. For Rangers, he will throw his body on the line and do everything it takes. However, if nobody uses, sees or serves him, he will not be able to do very much.
Rangers desperately need new signings
This was, quite frankly, a lot on Derek McInnes. He does not have a great squad right now and we will go into that in more detail. Since this match, he has admitted we need more signings. He also said that the signings we do have need to land soon. We were not quite sure if he meant the signings we currently have need to land. Alternatively, he may have meant that he needed new signings to land in Scotland. Either way, Rangers desperately needed new additions He has made that confrontational call to the board to sort that one out.
However, the simple fact is that he did not pick a particularly good XI. As we say, there were at least four players in there who were not up to the task. McInnes took two of them off at half time. It does not take a blind man to see what works and what does not. Why is yet another Rangers manager picking rotten starting XIs?
Bad XIs
Ibrox Noise will never understand the repeated persistence of Rangers managers, whoever they are, in picking poor XIs. Rangers are immediately on the back foot, struggling from the start and then trying to salvage it after conceding a goal. It seems to be a repeating pattern, whoever is in the dugout. McInnes just made the same mistakes as his predecessors. We were at a loss to understand why he knows what Rangers are all about, yet makes the same mistakes as his predecessors. Bewildering.
In the end, Rangers were slightly fortunate to get a point at Tannadice for Derek McInnes’s competitive debut. While we did have more shots than our opponents, they looked more dangerous and more capable of causing damage. Ultimately, it was a terrible start for McInnes and for this new era. We really hope it improves soon. However, our expectations for this season were never particularly high in the first place.