Rangers Exits Europa League Early: McInnes Addresses Team's Struggles
Rangers crashed out of Europe on the earliest of August nights, and Derek McInnes did not bother reaching for excuses.
His side drew 1-1 with Jagiellonia Bialystok at Ibrox in the second leg of their Europa League third qualifying round tie, but a 3-2 aggregate defeat sent them tumbling out of a competition the club believes is its natural stage. The boos at full-time were loud, sustained and pointed. McInnes listened to them, then agreed with them.
“It was justified, to be honest. It wasn't good enough,” the Rangers manager said, his winless start stretching to four games. “What we served up, particularly second half, wasn't good enough.”
The club’s built for Europa League and Champions League
This is Rangers’ earliest European exit since 2017. For a club that has built its modern identity on big continental nights under the lights, that statistic stings.
McInnes did not try to soften the blow.
“We need to be honest, the club's built for Europa League and Champions League and that's the intention, to get there,” he said. “But I'm not sure the team is quite ready for it at the moment and it pains me to say that, to be honest, it does.
“We need to get more quality, we need to try and get more confidence out of the team.”
The honesty cut through the noise. So did the reality. Rangers never looked like a side in full control of their own European fate, and when the pressure came, they cracked.
Tactical gamble, partial reward
Injuries stripped McInnes of key pieces. Left-back Tuur Rommens and striker Youssef Chermiti were both missing, forcing a rethink. He responded with a back three and five changes from Sunday’s defeat by Hibernian, trying to inject urgency and threat into a side that has stumbled through the opening weeks of the season.
Gassama and Yakota were pushed into demanding wing-back roles. It was bold. At times, it was reckless.
“I felt we had to make the game open and it was a bit too open at times in the first half,” McInnes admitted. “Gassama and Yakota playing as kind of effectively wing-backs, we were asking a lot of them at times.
“But I thought it paid dividends in terms of penalty box action, getting the goal. I thought we were good value for getting it one and a half-time, but I still thought that Jagiellonia had a couple of scares.”
The pattern is becoming familiar. Bursts of quality, flashes of intent, but no complete performance.
“Once again, it's not another 90-minute performance,” he said. “That's been in the Rangers for a while now. It's been a continuation of that this season, already.
“In the four games we've played, we've had some good moments, but it's not been good enough and certainly not a strong enough 90-minute performance.”
Lack of intelligence, lack of doing the right thing
The decisive moment summed up the wider problem. Rangers had the bodies back. They did not have the composure or the game management.
“But for us to lose the goal. It's inexplicable how we don't make a foul, how we don't stop the flow of the attack, how we don't just sanitise that whole situation,” McInnes said, still incredulous.
“It's not lack of bodies, it's lack of intelligence, it's lack of doing the right thing, to be honest.
“We lost all our composure after that, if I'm going to be honest with you.”
The crowd sensed it too. The early energy drained away, replaced by anxiety, then anger. By full-time, the mood inside Ibrox was toxic.
A sixth man in the hot seat, the same old questions
McInnes is Rangers’ sixth permanent manager since Steven Gerrard walked away in 2021. The churn in the dugout has not yet delivered a stable, convincing team on the pitch.
Despite the worst possible start – no wins, a European exit, and a support already on edge – the 55-year-old insists he still sees a way through.
“What we served up last year wasn't good enough. You get a job for a reason,” he said, referencing the state of the club he inherited. “You get a job to try and make things better and obviously sometimes you get it because things aren't quite right, and we have to try and get things moving the right way quickly.
“There's no two ways about it, we should be winning this game. Rangers, as strong as they can be, should be winning this day and we have got work to do between now and the end of the window, but between now and Sunday to get ready to win a [League] Cup tie [against holders St Mirren].”
The Europa League dream has gone before the play-off round. The transfer window clock is ticking. A League Cup tie against the holders now carries a weight it was never meant to bear.
For McInnes and Rangers, the question is no longer whether they are ready for Europe. It is how quickly they can stop this season unravelling before August is even out.
