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All new managers want to hit the ground running. But landing with a dull thud has never been a barrier to future glory, certainly not at Ibrox. Take Graeme Souness, whose start as Rangers’ player-manager put the ‘pish’ in ‘inauspicious’. On his league debut, away to Hibs, he was sent off in the first half after a revenge attack on the wrong mullet. Rangers lost 2-1 and were beaten in the third game as well. Graeme out! Rangers won the League Cup and finished the season as champions for the first time in nine years.
Dick Advocaat had a similarly awkward start in 1998. In his first game, played at Tranmere’s Prenton Park, Rangers went 3-0 down to Shelbourne in the first leg of their Big Vase tie. They went through comfortably in the end but lost the first league game a few days later. Dic-Advocaat out! Rangers had to settle for a domestic treble that season. Different times, when toys were played with for more than a few seconds before being launched from the pram with maximum force, followed a few seconds later by a handful of freshly sourced excreta. In 2026, alas, hot air and horse pucky are an acceptable substitute for reasonable discourse. And so, after failing to win any of his first four games as Rangers manager, Derek McInnes is “out of his depth” and a “dead man walking”.
