RANGERS vs JABLONEC: SHOCK XI! 🤯🔥 Three changes, eight summer signings, while Shankland is OUT and three key players are missing! 👀 😱 What do you think of this lineup — smart move or huge risk?
Derek McInnes is expected to shuffle his pack once again for Thursday night’s UEFA Conference League play-off first leg against Jablonec at Ibrox, with reports suggesting the Rangers head coach could make as many as three changes to the side that thrashed St Mirren 5-1 in the League Cup at the weekend, despite that result finally delivering his first win since taking charge. It’s a decision that speaks to the genuinely high stakes attached to Thursday’s tie, with European group-stage football on the line for the first time in what would be nine years should Rangers fail to see off Jablonec across the two legs, and it underlines just how quickly McInnes has been forced to juggle rotation, freshness, and building momentum simultaneously during an already hectic start to his Ibrox tenure.
The most eye-catching element of the expected changes concerns the goalkeeping and defensive setup, with reports suggesting Emmanuel Fernandez could come into the back line, while summer arrival Olwethu Makhanya continues to build his case for regular involvement following his move from South African football. There’s also a strong expectation that Dujon Sterling returns to the side at right-back, having been rotated out for the League Cup victory, alongside James Penrice, who is widely expected to be handed his full European debut having missed out on Rangers’s initial UEFA squad submission purely on a technicality, with his signing from AEK Athens not confirmed before the original deadline. UEFA regulations allowing up to two late changes to squad lists meant Rangers were able to register him in time, and given the impact he made on his domestic debut against St Mirren, scoring and assisting inside his first appearance in Rangers colours, it would be a considerable surprise if McInnes didn’t find a way to get him involved from the outset in a tie of this magnitude.
In midfield, the expectation is that Nicolas Raskin continues, despite his continued status as what McInnes himself has previously described as something of a “flight risk” given ongoing transfer speculation surrounding his long-term Ibrox future. With no imminent departure on the cards and the Belgian having delivered arguably his best individual performance of the season against St Mirren while wearing the captain’s armband in Lawrence Shankland’s absence, it would make little tactical sense for McInnes to leave out a player of his quality and current form purely because of uncertainty hanging over his future. Cammy Devlin is tipped to come in alongside him to add extra defensive stability and energy in the middle of the park, a change from the shape used at the weekend that should give Rangers a bit more control and physicality against a Jablonec side who have shown they can be a handful on the counter.
Further forward, Daisuke Yokota looks set to retain his place on the right of the front three, with reports suggesting McInnes has taken a particular liking to the Japanese international’s directness and work rate since his summer move, while Thelo Aasgaard could return to the starting lineup on the left flank having been used more sparingly during the League Cup victory. Central to all of this, though, is the expected return of Lawrence Shankland to the middle of that front three, restoring the captain to a central striking role just days after his high-profile omission from the starting eleven against St Mirren became one of the bigger talking points of the season so far. Rangers haven’t yet seen the best of their record signing since his move from Hearts, and while the tactical switch that dropped him to the bench delivered spectacular attacking returns against St Mirren, McInnes appears ready to revert to a more familiar setup for a European occasion of this magnitude, banking on Shankland’s proven pedigree and big-match experience to make the difference over two legs against unfamiliar Czech opposition.
What makes all of this particularly striking, when you step back and look at the fuller picture, is just how many of Rangers’s expected starting eleven against Jablonec are products of this summer’s extraordinary recruitment drive. Between Sterling, Penrice, Makhanya, Devlin, Yokota, Aasgaard, Shankland, and potentially Fernandez, as many as eight of McInnes’s likely starting lineup could be summer arrivals, an almost unprecedented level of squad turnover for a club heading into a fixture of this significance barely a month into the new campaign. It’s a reminder of just how aggressively this rebuild has been conducted since McInnes’s appointment, and while the volume of change has clearly contributed to Rangers’s disjointed start to the season domestically and in Europe, taking just two points from their opening four competitive fixtures before finally finding form against St Mirren, there’s a case to be made that a European night of this magnitude represents exactly the kind of occasion where the quality of this new-look squad, if it can finally click into gear collectively, has the potential to shine through.
Absentees remain a factor McInnes will need to navigate regardless of his final selection. Youssef Chermiti continues to be sidelined through injury, a blow given his importance as an alternative central striking option, while Ben Godfrey and Jose Cifuentes are also unavailable, further stretching a defensive and midfield unit already having to adapt to so many new faces and combinations in such a short space of time. Those absences add extra weight to the decisions McInnes does have available to him, and it’s part of why the make-up of his back line in particular, with Fernandez potentially coming in and Makhanya continuing to push for involvement, will be watched so closely by supporters heading into kick-off.
Jablonec themselves arrive at Ibrox with a genuinely impressive recent record that should serve as a warning against any complacency, unbeaten in nine straight matches and having already dispatched both Varazdin and RFS on their own run through the qualifying rounds this summer. Head coach Lubos Kozel has signalled he could name an unchanged starting eleven following his side’s 2-1 victory over RFS in the previous round, a sign of settled confidence that stands in fairly stark contrast to the constant rotation and reshuffling Rangers have had to work through domestically. That contrast in circumstances, one side working from stability and continuity, the other still very much mid-rebuild and searching for its best combination, is likely to be one of the defining subplots of the tie itself, and it’s exactly why McInnes’s selection calls carry such significance heading into Thursday night.
There’s also the broader context of what’s at stake to factor into any assessment of the expected lineup. Defeat across the two legs would leave Rangers without European group-stage football for the first time in nine years, a considerable blow both financially and reputationally for a club of Rangers’s size and ambition, particularly one that has invested so heavily over the summer specifically with continental competition in mind. Victory, by contrast, secures a place in the Conference League proper for the first time since the competition’s inception back in 2021, offering a genuine platform for European nights at Ibrox throughout the autumn and winter and a chance for McInnes’s expensively assembled squad to finally start showing the kind of form and cohesion that convinced the club to back him so heavily in the transfer market over the summer.
Whatever combination McInnes ultimately settles on, Thursday’s tie represents arguably the first genuinely defining moment of his young Ibrox tenure, a fixture where the calibre and depth of this summer’s rebuild will be tested directly against a confident, well-organised Czech side who have shown no signs of fear against stronger opposition earlier in their own qualifying campaign. With Shankland restored to a central role, Penrice set for his full European bow, and as many as eight summer signings potentially named in the starting eleven, all eyes will be on whether this rapidly assembled Rangers squad can finally translate the promise of individual quality into the kind of collective performance needed to secure a result that keeps their European ambitions alive heading into the second leg
