Dismal Dundee United Display Leaves Djeidi Gassama’s Rangers Future Hanging By A Thread As McInnes Weighs Ruthless Call
Rangers have now gone without an opening-day victory in the Scottish Premiership since the start of the 2022/23 campaign, extending that unwanted run after being held to a 1-1 draw by Dundee United on Friday night in Derek McInnes’s first competitive fixture in charge. The Light Blues found themselves unable to find a way past Jim Goodwin’s side after falling behind early on, and while a moment of real quality from Thelo Aasgaard hauled them level, they could not build on that spark to snatch all three points, leaving McInnes to reflect on a mixed opening statement from his heavily reshaped squad.
Aasgaard’s leveller was as good as it gets in terms of a debut-season equaliser, the Norwegian rifling the ball home left-footed to cancel out Dundee United’s opener and give Rangers something to build from in the second half. While McInnes will undoubtedly have left Tannadice with plenty of individual concerns about how various members of his new-look squad performed, Aasgaard stood out as one of the genuine bright spots on an otherwise underwhelming evening for the visitors. The former Luton Town man began the match operating in the number ten role just behind Lawrence Shankland, before being shifted out to the left flank for the second half, a positional switch that would go on to have significant consequences both for Aasgaard’s own performance and for the fortunes of one of his teammates.
Where McInnes got his selection wrong
There was a degree of confusion among supporters when Rangers’ official team news was first released ahead of kick-off, with many left scratching their heads at the sight of Youssef Chermiti named among the substitutes while Ryan Naderi was handed a starting berth instead. Given the information available at that point, it seemed reasonable to assume Naderi would be deployed alongside Shankland up front in some kind of 4-4-2 or 4-2-2-2 setup. Instead, McInnes opted to push the German out to the right flank within a 4-2-3-1 structure, a decision that did not pay off in the way the head coach would have hoped.
The knock-on effect of that selection was a Rangers side that looked notably unbalanced for large periods of the first half, with Naderi consistently drifting inside toward central areas rather than holding the width expected of a right-sided attacker. That tendency to come inside left acres of space out on the flank, space that ultimately had to be filled by right-back Dujon Sterling, a player not renowned for his technical quality or creative influence in the final third, being asked to shoulder the burden of providing Rangers’ entire attacking threat down that side of the pitch. Naderi’s underlying numbers from his 45 minutes on the pitch made for fairly stark reading, completing just 67% of his passes, failing to register a single successful dribble or attempted cross, and winning only one of three ground duels alongside three of nine aerial contests, a collection of statistics that offered little to suggest he was suited to the wide role he had been asked to fill.
To his credit, McInnes moved swiftly to address the issue, hauling the former Hansa Rostock forward off at the interval and reshuffling his side by pushing Mohamed Diomande out to the right, a switch that appeared to help Rangers find a greater degree of balance and ultimately played a part in the side rescuing a point from a difficult opening fixture. Naderi’s struggles operating out wide on the right also help explain why Rangers have been so heavily linked in recent weeks with moves for both Besiktas winger Vaclav Cerny and Frosinone forward Fares Ghedjemis, given that both are natural left-footers who operate on the right flank, precisely the profile of player capable of cutting inside onto their stronger foot and offering the kind of direct running threat that was so conspicuously absent from that side of the pitch against Dundee United.
The Rangers man whose Ibrox future now looks over
While the issues on the right side of Rangers’ attack proved to be more of a tactical and positional problem, easily rectified with a half-time switch, it is the situation out on the opposite flank that appears to carry far more serious and longer-lasting implications, with Djeidi Gassama’s future at the club now looking to be hanging by the thinnest of threads following his display at Tannadice. McInnes has already shown a willingness to be ruthless in reshaping his squad this summer, having already sanctioned the sale of Oliver Antman to Anderlecht for a fee in excess of £4 million, and all the early indications suggest Gassama could well be the next man shown the exit door at Ibrox.
The Mauritania international’s underlying struggles are not a new phenomenon confined purely to this one match, with the winger having ended last season on an extended barren run in front of goal, managing just a single goal in his final 17 appearances of the 2025/26 campaign. Rather than using pre-season and a fresh start under new management as an opportunity to reset and rediscover his best form, Gassama appeared to carry those same struggles directly into the new campaign, delivering a first-half display against Dundee United that did little to suggest any meaningful improvement. His underlying statistics for that opening 45 minutes made for particularly bleak reading, completing only 55% of his attempted passes and generating a mere 0.02 expected assists for his teammates across the entire half, numbers that reflect a player struggling badly to influence the game in any positive attacking sense.
McInnes evidently reached the same conclusion as many watching on, opting to withdraw Gassama at half-time in a substitution that mirrored the decision to remove the struggling Naderi from the opposite flank. Taken together with the emphatic manner in which Aasgaard subsequently caught the eye once switched over to the left-hand side in the second half, scoring Rangers’ equaliser after drifting inside from that flank into the penalty area, the picture painted is one in which Gassama now finds himself under serious threat of being squeezed out of his customary position entirely. With Aasgaard clearly thriving out on the left, promising academy graduate Findlay Curtis continuing to develop and push for opportunities, and Rangers simultaneously showing strong interest in bringing in both Cerny and Ghedjemis to address their right-wing options, Gassama could quickly find himself sliding a long way down the pecking order under his new head coach.
It was telling that McInnes did not hesitate in the slightest to remove Gassama from proceedings at the interval, a decision that speaks volumes about how unimpressed the new Rangers boss appears to have been with what he witnessed from the winger during that opening period. Given the broader context of Gassama’s underwhelming form stretching back across the tail end of last season, this latest disappointing outing at Tannadice may well prove to be the final piece of evidence needed to convince the Ibrox hierarchy that his time at the club has effectively run its course.
Curtis already offering a home-grown alternative
Adding further weight to the argument that Rangers may not even need to actively pursue a direct replacement for Gassama is the form and progress already being shown by Findlay Curtis, whose recent statistics compare rather favourably against those produced by the out-of-form Mauritanian. Across the 2025/26 season, Curtis managed to find the net six times in 24 Premiership appearances split across spells with both Rangers and Kilmarnock, a considerably more productive return than the three goals Gassama managed to register across 38 appearances during that same campaign. Those figures suggest that Rangers may well already possess a genuinely capable left-sided winger within their existing ranks, one who could realistically compete with Aasgaard for regular game time in that position without the club needing to invest additional funds in bringing in an outright replacement specifically for that role.
The case for cashing in while value remains
Beyond simply the football rationale for moving Gassama on, there is also a clear financial argument in favour of Rangers acting sooner rather than later. The club reportedly rejected an offer of £10 million from Monaco for the winger back in January, a figure that confirms genuine interest already exists elsewhere in European football for his services. Given that level of previous interest, there is a strong case to be made that Rangers should look to capitalise on that market appetite now, moving to sell Gassama in the coming days or weeks of the current transfer window while his valuation remains reasonably intact, rather than risking a continued decline in both form and market value the longer he remains at a club where his path to regular first-team football now looks increasingly blocked.
Neither his form throughout the closing stages of last season nor his underwhelming performance in this season’s opener against Dundee United offer much encouragement that a long-term future at Ibrox awaits him, and with McInnes already demonstrating a clear willingness to move on players who do not fit into his immediate plans, as evidenced by the swift sale of Antman earlier in the summer, there would be little surprise if Gassama followed a similar path out of the exit door before the window eventually closes. Rangers would be wise to explore the market for potential suitors sooner rather than later, striking while there remains genuine interest in the player rather than waiting until his stock has fallen even further amid continued struggles in front of goal and in general attacking productivity.
The broader picture for Rangers
Taken as a whole, this opening fixture offered McInnes a revealing first look at both the strengths and the shortcomings currently present within his squad. Aasgaard’s emphatic response after switching to the left flank underlined the calibre of talent already present within certain areas of the team, while the alternative struggles endured by both Naderi and Gassama on the opposite wings highlighted just how much rebuilding work remains to be done if Rangers are to field a genuinely balanced and threatening attacking unit on a consistent basis throughout the season. With interest in both Cerny and Ghedjemis continuing to be reported, and with home-grown options like Curtis waiting in the wings, McInnes appears to have no shortage of alternatives available to him as he looks to solve the puzzle that presented itself so clearly during those difficult opening 45 minutes at Tannadice.
For Gassama specifically, the coming days and weeks are likely to prove pivotal in determining whether he has any genuine future left at Ibrox, with all the early signs suggesting his race under McInnes may already be run. Whether Rangers ultimately choose to cash in on their previous £10 million valuation from Monaco or explore other interest that may yet materialise elsewhere in Europe, the writing appears to be on the wall for a player who simply could not find a way to arrest his declining form when given the opportunity to make a fresh first impression under new management on the opening day of the new season.
