Emmanuel Fernandez: A Rolls Royce Defender at Rangers
Emmanuel Fernandez walked into Ibrox last season and instantly looked the part. Tall, composed, silk on the ball and steel in the air, he carried himself like a defender who belonged on a bigger stage. Rangers fans quickly settled on a label: a Rolls Royce at the back.
But even the most luxurious models can veer off course.
Fernandez’s first campaign in Glasgow mixed elegance with the occasional jolt – those little lapses in concentration that turn a routine clearance into a heart-in-mouth moment. Under Derek McInnes, that margin for error shrinks dramatically. The new Rangers manager built his playing career on ruthless standards and a refusal to tolerate slackness. That is the world Fernandez now lives in.
Cruyff turns and a dangerous road
The warning signs are already there. A couple of Cruyff turns in his own half might draw a murmur of appreciation in friendlies, but they will draw something very different from McInnes if they go wrong when the real stuff starts. The centre-half has the talent to glide away from pressure, yet the tightrope is obvious: one misjudged touch, one overindulgent twist, and he is not just in trouble with his manager – he has his team-mates exposed and the crowd on edge.
Scott McDermott has already flagged it: if Fernandez wants to be the pillar of this new-look backline, the risky flourishes have to be trimmed. The poise stays. The lapses go. McInnes is not here to indulge defenders who play to the gallery.
And this is a backline being built around him. Atalanta loanee Ben Godfrey is expected to slot in alongside Fernandez at the heart of a revamped defence, with £6 million man Ivor Pandur taking over from Jack Butland as No. 1. Dujon Sterling and Tuur Rommens should keep things familiar at full-back. It’s a big stage, and Fernandez is right in the middle of it.
McInnes and the Ibrox standard
McInnes knows better than most what Rangers are supposed to look like. As a player, he hoovered up trophies in the 1990s during a spell when winning at Ibrox was not a target, it was a habit. That mindset is exactly what he wants to rewire into a squad that has too often been accused of fragility when the pressure bites.
If his players feel uncomfortable, good. That is the point.
He has told them as much. The standards he remembers from his own dressing room do not leave space for passengers or for those who drift through games. He wants a group that lives on edge, a squad that understands that every slack touch, every lazy press, every lapse in concentration is a step back towards the mentality questions that have dogged Rangers in recent years.
Those questions will come quickly if they stumble out of the blocks again. Last season, under Russell Martin, a new-look Rangers side opened with a frustrating draw at Fir Park against Jens Berthel Askou’s Motherwell – another team in flux, another manager on debut. Optimism met reality, and reality won.
McInnes cannot afford a repeat.
A squad still short – and stretched
Rangers have been busy. Eight new faces are already through the door. Yet the squad still feels incomplete.
That elusive creative spark remains high on the shopping list, the sort of player who can unlock a low block when the tempo dips and the ideas dry up. Thelo Aasgaard’s recent shoulder scare only sharpened the focus on that gap. He is fit again and likely to operate on one flank against Dundee United, with Djeidi Gassama on the other, but the hunt for wide men continues on both sides of the pitch.
Behind them, Dan Neil and Cammy Devlin are lined up as the engine room, tasked with setting the tempo and snapping into tackles in front of that new-look defence. Both arrive with reputations for energy and bite – qualities McInnes will demand from the first whistle.
There is another issue too: depth at full-back. A back-up for Rommens is still on the agenda, and with European qualifiers looming large in the calendar, the clock is already ticking. Scottish clubs live in a different transfer world from those in the Big Five leagues. While Rangers scramble to assemble a battle-ready squad in time for high-stakes qualifiers, clubs elsewhere are drifting through pre-season tours, playing gentle friendlies and taking their time to decide whether a Nico Raskin type might be worth a punt.
Tottenham certainly do not feel compelled to rush Mikey Moore back to Govan. They will want to see him through pre-season, weigh up his role, and only then make a call. At the same time, they are sizing up another huge outlay on someone like Savinho. That is the market Rangers are trying to navigate from the outside.
Them’s the breaks.
Shankland, Chermiti and the Naderi question
Up the pitch, the intrigue centres on how McInnes fits his new captain into the system. Lawrence Shankland will lead the team out at Tannadice, the former Hearts talisman handed the armband and the responsibility that comes with it. The plan, for now, looks like a front two.
Shankland is expected to operate slightly deeper, with Youssef Chermiti alongside him, stretching the line. It is an aggressive move from McInnes, a statement that he wants goals and presence in the box from the outset.
Waiting behind them is Ryan Naderi, arguably the standout call in McInnes’ first league XI conversation. The German striker arrived in January for serious money from Hansa Rostock, where he had been the main man in Germany’s third tier. His Rangers story started brightly before injury cut it short.
Naderi offers something different. He presses from the front, chases lost causes, and uses his height to trouble defenders at both ends of the pitch. There are shades of Kenny Miller in his relentless running, especially when paired with a more traditional finisher – just as Miller once was with Kris Boyd.
If, as expected, the No. 9 and No. 7 start together, Naderi will again have to make his impact from the bench, perhaps against a Dundee United side he has already scored against. For a player who wants more than a bit-part role, nights like this are where reputations shift.
New faces, old demands
This Rangers squad has been ripped apart and rebuilt at speed. Philadelphia Union defender Olwethu Makhanya is the latest through the door, though he will need to be patient with Godfrey and Fernandez set to start. New signings Dan Neil, Makhanya, Ross McCrorie and Vanja Dragojevic are all expected to begin on the bench, waiting for their first taste of competitive action in Light Blue.
On the touchline, McInnes will be there – just. He has appealed a four-game SFA ban for comments made at the end of last season while in charge of Hearts, allowing him to patrol the technical area at Tannadice. He will need to be on his best behaviour. Nick Walsh takes charge of the match, with Calum Spence and Jonathan Bell running the lines, Peter Stuart as fourth official, and Steven McLean assisted by Gary Hilland in the VAR room.
The stakes are obvious. European qualifiers are coming fast. Revenue, reputation, and momentum all hinge on what happens in these opening weeks.
It feels like only yesterday that Danny Rohl’s Rangers drifted to a close in a dead rubber against Falkirk. Now there is a new man in the hot seat, a new captain, a reshaped squad, and the same old demands.
A dawn it certainly is for McInnes’ Rangers. The question is whether it brings real light, or just another false start in a club that has had far too many of those in recent years.
