Dundee United vs Rangers Injury News: Two Ruled Out, Dragojevic Race Against Time
Rangers’ long-awaited return to competitive action arrives on Friday night, with Derek McInnes leading his side into their first fixture of the new Scottish Premiership campaign away at Dundee United, but with a handful of selection headaches still to be resolved before kick-off at Tannadice. As the countdown to the 8pm curtain-raiser continues, both clubs are dealing with their own share of fitness concerns heading into what promises to be a fascinating opening night for the new season.
Friday’s clash carries obvious significance for McInnes personally, given it represents his first competitive match in permanent charge of Rangers since taking over from Danny Röhl earlier this summer. The 55-year-old has wasted little time making his mark on the Ibrox squad, overseeing an extremely active transfer window that has already yielded seven new additions as he looks to address the shortcomings that led to a disappointing third-placed finish last season. That kind of upheaval brings its own challenges in terms of squad integration, and with the new campaign now just days away, McInnes will be keen to have as many of his new faces available and up to speed as possible for the trip to Tayside.
Dundee United, for their part, will have designs on making home advantage count as they look to kickstart an improved campaign of their own. Jim Goodwin’s side endured an inconsistent 2025/26 season that ultimately saw them settle for a bottom-half finish in their second year back in the Premiership, a disappointing outcome given the position they had built themselves into during the early stages of the previous campaign. Goodwin has responded with his own significant summer rebuild, bringing in nine new signings as he looks to add greater steel and consistency to a Tangerines squad he has previously admitted needed a stronger spine following last season’s shortcomings. Names such as Michael Forbes, Joshua Rawlins, Lachlan Rose, Jack Walton and Jordan Amissah have all arrived at Tannadice as part of that overhaul, joining a group still built around homegrown academy graduates like Ross Graham, Miller Thomson and Kai Fotheringham, all of whom have continued to feature prominently in Goodwin’s plans despite the considerable turnover elsewhere in the squad.
Chief among Rangers’ fitness concerns heading into Friday night is the situation surrounding new signing Vanja Dragojevic. The Serbian midfielder completed his move to Ibrox from Partizan Belgrade only last week, but has been unable to feature in any of Rangers’ recent pre-season activity, including the goalless draw against West Ham United, while he waits on his visa paperwork to be finalised. It is a frustrating situation for both player and club given the calibre many observers already attach to the 20-year-old, but until that administrative process is resolved, his involvement at Tannadice remains genuinely uncertain. Rangers will be hoping the necessary documentation comes through in time to at least give Dragojevic a place among the matchday squad, even if a full debut from the first whistle may still be some way off given his lack of match sharpness following the disruption to his pre-season integration.
There is also a doubt hanging over Ross McCrorie’s availability for the trip north. The versatile defender, one of Rangers’ summer arrivals, missed the pre-season friendly against West Ham after picking up a knee injury in training, and as things stand, he remains a doubt for Friday’s Premiership opener as a direct consequence of that setback. McInnes will be assessing McCrorie’s fitness closely in the build-up to kick-off, mindful of the balance between easing a new signing back into contention too soon and ensuring he has as many options as possible available from the outset of a demanding season that will also include Europa League qualifying commitments in the weeks ahead.
Dundee United have their own fitness worries to contend with at the other end of the pitch. Versatile defender Dario Naamo, capped internationally by Iraq and a player who has previously spoken candidly about the disappointment of missing out on involvement at this summer’s World Cup with his national side, is considered a doubt for the visit of Rangers due to a muscle issue picked up during preparations. Losing a player of Naamo’s positional flexibility would be a blow for Goodwin given the role he has played in shoring up the Tangerines’ backline since his arrival at Tannadice, and his participation in the curtain-raiser will likely go down to a late fitness assessment closer to kick-off.
More definitively ruled out for the hosts is young midfielder Miller Thomson, who will play no part in Friday’s season opener after suffering an ankle injury during a collision in training. Thomson was swiftly placed in a protective boot following the knock and is expected to be sidelined for several weeks as a result, a frustrating blow for a player who has continued to establish himself as a regular fixture in Goodwin’s first-team plans despite Dundee United’s extensive summer recruitment drive. Having broken through as a teenager and continued to develop his versatility across both full-back and midfield roles in the years since, Thomson’s enforced absence represents a genuine loss of squad depth for United just as the serious business of the new campaign gets under way, even if the club will hope his recovery period proves to be a relatively swift one given the nature of the injury.
Taken together, both clubs head into Friday’s fixture managing a mixture of doubts and confirmed absences that will test the depth each has built into their respective squads over the course of a busy summer transfer window. For Rangers, the Dragojevic and McCrorie situations are perhaps best understood as the natural teething problems that come with such an extensive rebuild of the squad in such a short space of time, with McInnes having brought in seven new faces since taking permanent charge. Getting new arrivals fully up to speed with visa processes, fitness levels and tactical understanding all at once, while simultaneously integrating them alongside players who came through under previous regimes, was always going to throw up occasional complications, and the situation heading into this particular fixture is a reasonably clear illustration of that challenge in action.
Dundee United’s own injury picture reflects a similar dynamic, if for slightly different reasons. Goodwin’s nine new signings this summer have been added to a squad still heavily reliant on a core of academy-developed talent, and losing a player of Thomson’s versatility, even for what should ultimately prove a matter of weeks rather than months, removes a useful option from a Tannadice group that will already be adjusting to life with several unfamiliar faces in the dressing room. Naamo’s fitness concern, while less severe, adds a further layer of uncertainty to a Dundee United backline that Goodwin will be keen to have functioning as cohesively as possible from the very first whistle of the new campaign, particularly against a Rangers side who, injury situations notwithstanding, still possess considerably greater squad depth and individual quality across the pitch.
From a broader perspective, Friday’s fixture represents far more than simply the opening exchange of the new Premiership season. For Rangers, it marks the true beginning of life under McInnes in a competitive context, following a summer defined by wholesale change both in terms of playing and coaching personnel. The scale of that upheaval, seven new signings already through the door and further incoming and outgoing business reportedly still in the pipeline, means Friday’s contest will offer an early, if inevitably imperfect, first look at how McInnes intends to shape his Rangers side going forward. Injury situations involving Dragojevic and McCrorie may yet force the new boss into selection choices he would otherwise have preferred to avoid at such an early stage, but they will not materially alter his broader intentions for how the team should be set up and how it should play.
For Dundee United, meanwhile, the visit of Rangers offers a first proper opportunity to demonstrate whether Goodwin’s own summer rebuild has addressed the issues that contributed to last season’s disappointing finish. Nine new arrivals represent a significant refresh of the Tannadice squad, and while injury concerns over Naamo and confirmed absence of Thomson are unwelcome distractions in the build-up, Goodwin will still have more than enough quality and depth at his disposal to set his side up competitively against one of Scottish football’s traditional heavyweights. Home advantage, allied to a vocal Tannadice crowd eager to see season-opening improvement after a mixed previous campaign, should give United every incentive to make life as difficult as possible for a Rangers side still finding its feet under new management.
There remains, of course, a considerable gulf in resources and squad depth between the two clubs, and even accounting for the various fitness concerns affecting both camps, Rangers should still be considered strong favourites heading into Friday’s contest based purely on the individual quality McInnes has at his disposal across the pitch. Whether Dragojevic’s visa situation resolves in time to allow at least a place on the bench, and whether McCrorie proves fit enough to feature from the outset, will likely have some bearing on exactly how the Ibrox side lines up, but the broader expectation remains that Rangers possess the greater strength in depth to overcome whatever late injury concerns crop up in the final 48 hours before kick-off.
As things stand, both clubs are working through the final stages of their pre-match preparations with a mixture of confirmed team news and lingering uncertainty still to be resolved. Rangers will hope for positive updates on both Dragojevic’s visa paperwork and McCrorie’s recovery from his knee complaint in the day or two remaining before kick-off, while Dundee United will be assessing Naamo’s muscle issue closely to determine whether he can be risked from the outset or whether his involvement needs to be managed more carefully given the demands of a season-opening fixture against high-quality opposition. Thomson’s absence, by contrast, is already a settled matter for Goodwin’s side, with the focus for United now shifting towards which of Goodwin’s summer signings step in to fill the void left by his enforced spell on the sidelines.
Friday night at Tannadice, then, promises to be a fascinating opening exchange for the new Scottish Premiership season, shaped as much by the respective injury situations facing both camps as by the broader narrative of two clubs attempting to move forward following contrasting but equally challenging previous campaigns. McInnes will be desperate to open his permanent Rangers reign with a positive result, regardless of which of his squad members are ultimately passed fit to feature, while Goodwin will see this as an early opportunity to prove that Dundee United’s own summer rebuild has left them better equipped to compete with the division’s leading sides than they managed to be for large parts of last season. Both managers will be keeping a close eye on the treatment room in the build-up, but come 8pm on Friday evening, it will be down to whichever eleven players each boss ultimately trusts to get the new campaign under way in the right fashion
