Rangers finally kick off their Scottish Premiership campaign for real on Friday night, and it will be Derek McInnes leading the club into a competitive fixture for the very first time since taking over at Ibrox, even if he won’t actually be able to do so from the touchline. The new Gers boss takes his side to Tannadice Park on 31 July looking to open the new era with three points, but he will be watching from the stands rather than the dugout, the price he is paying for comments made in a previous life as Hearts manager.
The story behind that absence is one that has rumbled on for weeks and threatened to overshadow what should have been a straightforward start to life in charge of Rangers. Back in May, while still at Tynecastle, McInnes reacted furiously on air after Celtic were awarded a stoppage-time penalty against Motherwell that effectively ended Hearts’ title challenge on the final day of last season. He described the VAR-assisted decision, which saw referee John Beaton point to the spot after a handball review, as “actually quite disgusting,” and added afterwards that it felt like it was “us against everybody.” Those comments were always likely to catch up with him eventually, and once he swapped Tynecastle for Ibrox last month, the Scottish FA moved to bring a charge that could carry a four-match minimum punishment.
That charge was heard in mid-July, and the verdict landed just as Rangers were deep into their pre-season programme. McInnes was hit with a four-match touchline ban, one of which was suspended until the end of the season, meaning three of those games will be served immediately. Unfortunately for Rangers, the timing could barely have been worse, with the ban now stretching across the season opener at Dundee United, the following Premiership fixture against Hibernian at Ibrox, and a League Cup second-round tie in mid-August. Rangers have made their unhappiness with the decision clear, insisting publicly that McInnes’ comments were “directed at the decision, rather than representing any broader criticism of officials,” and the club has confirmed it intends to appeal the sanction. Unless and until that appeal succeeds, though, McInnes will have no choice but to take his seat in the stands at Tannadice on Friday evening, relaying his instructions to his coaching staff on the touchline rather than delivering them himself pitch-side. It is a farcical situation for any incoming manager to find himself in before his first competitive game in the job, but Rangers will simply have to get on with it and trust that the work McInnes has already put in on the training ground carries the team through.
If nothing else, Rangers have had a productive pre-season to lean on heading into the fixture, even accounting for the disruption caused by the international exploits of some key players over the summer. The build-up began domestically with a routine 5-1 victory over Raith Rovers, followed by a comfortable 3-1 win against Dunfermline Athletic, before the squad decamped to Spain for a warm-weather training camp in La Nucia. That trip threw up sterner opposition, with Rangers held to a 1-1 draw by South African side Kaizer Chiefs before playing out a 2-2 draw against Malaysian outfit Johor Darul Ta’zim. Back on home soil, McInnes’ side then hosted a double-header at Ibrox, edging past Saint-Etienne 2-1 before a goalless stalemate against West Ham United rounded off the pre-season schedule. It has been a mixed bag of results in the truest sense, offering some encouraging signs going forward while also flagging up defensive issues that McInnes will be keen to iron out before the serious business of the Premiership campaign gets under way.
There has also been a genuine fitness scare to contend with in the closing stages of preparation. Thelo Aasgaard picked up a knock during the West Ham draw that left him clearly in discomfort, sparking real concern given how important the Norwegian has become to Rangers’ attacking play since arriving at the club. The good news for Gers fans is that Aasgaard is now expected to be fit and available for the Dundee United trip, easing what would otherwise have been a considerable headache for the new coaching staff so early into the campaign. His recovery is timely, too, given that his participation for Norway at this summer’s World Cup already compressed his available rest period before pre-season training resumed, leaving very little margin for a fresh setback heading into the opening weekend.
Rangers go into the game with something of a selection puzzle at the back of McInnes’ mind, largely a consequence of an eventful summer in the transfer market. New arrivals Ivor Pandur, Ben Godfrey, Cammy Devlin and Lawrence Shankland are all in contention to be handed starts as McInnes looks to stamp his own identity on the side from the very first whistle of the new season, and all four have had varying degrees of pre-season involvement to build up match fitness. One new face who will not be involved, however, is Vanja Dragojevic, who has been unable to feature in any of Rangers’ warm-up fixtures due to ongoing visa issues that have prevented him from linking up properly with his new teammates. It is a frustrating situation for both player and club, and it means the Serbian will have to wait a little longer to make his first appearance in Light Blue.
There is also no place in the squad for Nicolas Raskin, with McInnes confirming after the West Ham draw that the Belgian midfielder will not be involved against Dundee United. Raskin’s long-term Ibrox future has been the subject of considerable transfer speculation throughout the summer, and his continued absence from matchday squads will only add fuel to talk of a departure before the window closes. For a player who has been such an important fixture in Rangers’ midfield in recent seasons, his exclusion from the opening-day squad is a notable one, and it will be interesting to see how that situation develops as the transfer deadline approaches.
Dundee United, for their part, arrive at this fixture under considerably less scrutiny but with plenty to prove of their own after a mixed pre-season under Jim Goodwin. The Tangerines have played five warm-up fixtures in total, most of them coming in Premier Sports Cup group action. They opened with a narrow 1-0 win over Stirling Albion before suffering a 1-0 defeat of their own against Montrose, a result that will have given Goodwin some food for thought given the gulf in resources between the two clubs. United bounced back impressively after that setback, though, thumping Arbroath 3-0 and then following it up with an even more emphatic 4-0 win over the Spartans, both results coming in their Premier Sports Cup group campaign and offering some encouraging signs in front of goal. Their final warm-up game before the visit of Rangers, however, ended in a 3-2 defeat to English League Two side Salford City at the weekend, a result that will have taken some of the gloss off an otherwise solid month of preparation.
In terms of team news at Tannadice, Mehdi Merghem is expected to be involved for the hosts after making a substitute cameo of around 20 minutes in United’s most recent warm-up fixture against Manchester United’s academy or reserve opposition, giving Goodwin another attacking option to call upon as his side look to cause an upset against one of Scottish football’s traditional heavyweights. Dundee United will fancy their chances of making life difficult for a Rangers side still bedding in a host of new faces and adapting to life under a new head coach, particularly with home advantage and a vocal Tannadice crowd behind them from the first whistle.
Friday’s game will kick the Scottish Premiership season off a full day ahead of the rest of the division’s opening fixtures, and it is set to be broadcast live on Sky Sports, with coverage available across both Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football. Kick-off at Tannadice Park is scheduled for 8pm, giving both sets of supporters a Friday night curtain-raiser to the new campaign and a first proper look at how their respective squads have shaped up over the summer transfer window.
On paper, Rangers should have more than enough quality across the pitch to see off a Dundee United side that, while dangerous on their day, simply does not possess the same strength in depth as the Ibrox club, even with McInnes watching on from the stands rather than the touchline. The Gers’ summer recruitment drive has added genuine quality in key areas, and with Aasgaard fit again after his scare against West Ham and a settled front line featuring the likes of Shankland now available to lead the line, there should be enough attacking threat to break down a well-organised Dundee United rearguard over the course of ninety minutes. The prediction here is a 2-1 win for Rangers, a scoreline that would represent a solid if unspectacular start to life under McInnes, even allowing for the inevitable teething problems that come with integrating so many new faces into the side at once.
For McInnes personally, there will be an understandable sense of frustration at not being able to take his seat in the home or away dugout for what is, in every sense, his first competitive game in interim charge of one of Scottish football’s grandest institutions. The touchline ban stemming from his time at Hearts is exactly the sort of unwanted subplot no incoming manager wants attached to his opening fixture, and Rangers’ insistence that his comments were aimed squarely at a single refereeing decision rather than officials as a whole will do little to change the outcome in the short term. What matters more for Ibrox supporters, though, is that their new head coach has clearly used the extended pre-season period to lay down clear principles and instructions to his players, even if he will be relaying final tweaks to his assistants via phone or radio from the stands on Friday evening rather than barking them out from the technical area himself.
There is also a broader context worth remembering here. Rangers go into this season having endured a genuinely turbulent twelve months on the managerial front, cycling through Russell Martin and Danny Röhl before finally settling on McInnes as the man they hope can bring some much-needed stability back to Ibrox. Given that backdrop, a straightforward opening-day win at Tannadice, even amid the unusual circumstances of the touchline ban, would go a long way towards restoring calm and giving supporters early reason for optimism heading into the new campaign. McInnes’ pedigree in Scottish football, built over years at Aberdeen and more recently at Hearts, suggests he understands the demands of a job like this far better than his immediate predecessor did, and his relative composure throughout the ban saga so far reflects a manager who is not going to be easily rattled by off-field noise.
For Jim Goodwin and Dundee United, meanwhile, this is precisely the sort of fixture that offers a platform to make an early statement of their own. A shock win over a Rangers side still finding its feet under a new regime would be a huge result for a Tannadice club looking to establish themselves as a genuine top-six presence in the Premiership this season, and Goodwin’s summer recruitment, allied to some promising pre-season form in the Premier Sports Cup group stage, suggests his side will not simply be there to make up the numbers on Friday night. The reality, though, is that Rangers’ greater squad depth and the calibre of new additions like Godfrey, Pandur, Devlin and Shankland should ultimately prove decisive over the course of the ninety minutes, even with their new head coach forced to watch on from a distance.
Friday night’s clash at Tannadice, then, promises to be a fascinating watch for reasons that go well beyond the action on the pitch itself. It marks the true start of the Derek McInnes era at Ibrox, a fresh chapter for a club desperate to move on from the chaos of the past year, all played out under the unusual shadow of a touchline ban picked up in a previous job. Whatever happens on the technical area front, Rangers supporters will simply be hoping their new-look squad can deliver the sort of professional, composed performance that sets the right tone for the season ahead, starting with three points against a Dundee United side who will fancy giving the new-look Gers a considerable fright of their own.
