Rangers released fresh training ground footage from Auchenhowie ahead of Thursday night’s crucial UEFA Conference League play-off first leg against Czech side Jablonec, and while these clips are always carefully cut to project positivity and hard work rather than genuine tactical insight, this particular batch of footage still offered plenty worth picking apart given the context surrounding Derek McInnes’s squad heading into one of the most important fixtures of his young Ibrox tenure. With qualification for European group-stage football hanging in the balance and the transfer window edging toward its final, frantic days, even a routine training clip carries a bit more significance than usual right now. Here’s a closer look at three things that stood out.
The first, and arguably the most eye-catching detail, was the sight of John Souttar training alongside the club’s two newest arrivals, Kosta Nedeljkovic and Vanja Dragojevic, despite the veteran centre-back’s continued and increasingly awkward exile from Derek McInnes’s first-team plans. Souttar’s inclusion in the session will have raised eyebrows among supporters who had assumed his Ibrox exit was simply a matter of time and paperwork rather than something still requiring him to turn up and train with players who, on paper, represent exactly the kind of fresh competition that’s pushed him further down the pecking order. His continued presence at the club, despite being left out of McInnes’s pre-season trip to Spain last month and officially absent from Rangers’s UEFA squad list submitted for the Jablonec tie, underlines just how unresolved his situation remains with the transfer deadline now bearing down fast. It’s an uncomfortable dynamic for all involved, a Scotland international effectively frozen out of competitive contention but still required to maintain fitness and professionalism in a training environment surrounded by the very reinforcements that made him surplus to requirements in the first place, and it speaks to the genuine difficulty Rangers appear to be having in finding a club willing to meet their valuation or take on his wages before the window shuts. Whether that resolves itself in the coming days, through a permanent exit, a loan arrangement, or simply Souttar seeing out the window in a kind of enforced limbo, remains one of the more pointed subplots hanging over this final stretch of Rangers’s summer business.
The second thing worth noting is the simple visual confirmation of Nedeljkovic and Dragojevic already working alongside the group just days after both completed their moves, and how quickly Rangers appear determined to integrate their two Serbian internationals into the fabric of the squad. Given the timeline involved, Nedeljkovic only flying in for his medical earlier in the week before being confirmed as the club’s 11th signing of the summer, seeing him already out on the training pitch, seemingly settled and working through sessions alongside his new teammates, will offer some reassurance to a fanbase eager to see McInnes get his new right-back up to speed as quickly as possible. With Dujon Sterling’s fitness question marks and Ross McCrorie viewed as a more conservative option in that position, there’s a genuine possibility Nedeljkovic could be thrown straight into contention for a debut against Jablonec, and early footage showing him already fully embedded in training, rather than easing in gradually on the sidelines, suggests the club and coaching staff see no reason to delay his integration. The presence of Dragojevic alongside him is a nice subplot in its own right too, the pair having already struck up enough of a relationship during the recruitment process, with Dragojevic reportedly helping persuade Nedeljkovic to choose Ibrox, that seeing them training together so soon feels like a natural continuation of a relationship that started before either kicked a ball for the club.
The third detail concerns Derek McInnes’s own visible presence and messaging around the group during this period, with the head coach continuing to push the theme of “standards” as Rangers work to bed in yet another wave of new faces into a squad philosophy still very much under construction. It’s a message McInnes has leaned on repeatedly since replacing his predecessor, and while it’s the kind of phrase that can sound slightly hollow when repeated often enough by successive regimes, there’s a reasonable argument that consistent messaging matters more than usual for a squad that has now absorbed eleven new arrivals in a single window. McInnes himself, speaking to media ahead of the Jablonec tie, was candid about the ongoing search for further attacking reinforcements, revealing he sits in offices right next to where his recruitment staff work daily to get the last pieces of business over the line, and stressing that the calibre of forward players Rangers are chasing are, in his words, always the hardest to land because other clubs want them too. That level of transparency about the graft still going into finalising the squad, even this deep into pre-season and with a competitive European tie only days away, reinforces the sense that this rebuild remains an active, ongoing project rather than one McInnes considers close to finished, and the training ground footage, watched with that context in mind, reads as much as a message to the dressing room about application and standards as it does a simple behind-the-scenes puff piece for supporters.
Taken together, these three details paint a picture of a club still very much mid-transition heading into a genuinely pivotal European fixture. Rangers have European group-stage qualification on the line against a Jablonec side that arrives at Ibrox unbeaten in nine matches and full of confidence having eliminated both Varazdin and RFS in earlier qualifying rounds, and McInnes will be doing everything he can behind the scenes to make sure his rapidly assembled squad is mentally and physically prepared for a tie that carries real stakes attached. The Souttar situation remains an awkward, unresolved footnote to an otherwise busy and largely well-received summer of incomings, the settling-in process for Nedeljkovic and Dragojevic looks to be progressing at pace, and the messaging from the top continues to emphasise application over comfort as this new-look Rangers side looks to build on the momentum generated by Sunday’s 5-1 demolition of St Mirren. With selection still coming down to the wire, and further changes to the UEFA squad list permitted right up until Wednesday night’s deadline, there’s a strong chance at least one or two of the faces seen training this week will be involved from the outset against Jablonec, making even routine footage like this worth watching closely for supporters trying to read the tea leaves ahead of kick-off.
