Rangers Start Season with 1-1 Draw Against Dundee United
Thelo Aasgaard spared Derek McInnes a losing start to life as Rangers manager, dragging his new side to a 1-1 draw at Dundee United on the opening night of the Scottish Premiership season.
It was not pretty. It was not controlled. But it was a point.
McInnes’ Rangers jolted early
The new era began with a jolt. With the season barely out of neutral, Lachlan Rose wrote his name into the campaign’s first chapter, drilling in the opening goal of the Premiership season to give United a deserved half-time lead at Tannadice.
Rangers never truly settled before the break. The ball belonged to them often enough, yet it never felt under their command. Passes went astray, attacks broke down, and United grew bolder with every loose touch in blue.
McInnes prowled the touchline, but his team looked stuck between ideas – too slow to build, too careless to counter. United, sharper and more coherent, carried their advantage into the interval with a sense of authority rather than fortune.
Aasgaard lifts Rangers
The restart brought a different rhythm. Rangers finally began to punch holes in United’s shape, their passing crisper, their movement more aggressive. The pressure built, the noise rose, and on 56 minutes it told.
Aasgaard, the calmest man in the stadium, produced the moment McInnes needed. Timing his run and finish to perfection, he swept home a superb equaliser that felt like a release as much as a goal. One clean strike, and suddenly Rangers looked like a team again.
For a spell, United rocked. Rangers pushed higher, snapped into challenges, and turned the contest into the kind of territorial siege their supporters expect. An away end that had spent the first half muttering now believed there might be a statement win in this, not just a rescue act.
United’s big chance goes begging
Then the tide turned back.
United steadied themselves, tightened the spaces, and began to break Rangers’ momentum. The game, once racing in one direction, slipped into a more even, nervier pattern.
With eight minutes to play, it should have swung decisively. Substitute Daniel Bennie bent a gorgeous, swerving pass in behind the Rangers defence, splitting the line and sending Jesse Randall clear, the New Zealand international staring at the chance to win the night and spoil McInnes’ debut.
What followed lacked everything the pass had – conviction, clarity, ruthlessness. Randall tried to be delicate when the moment demanded decisiveness, dinking a tame effort straight into the grateful hands of goalkeeper Ivor Pandur. Tannadice groaned. McInnes exhaled.
That was the moment. United knew it. Rangers knew it. The game never quite recovered from the miss.
Rangers, for all their second-half improvement, could not turn possession into one last clear opening. United, having wasted their golden chance, settled for the point they had earned over the piece.
McInnes walks away with something to show for his first night in charge, but also with a clear picture of the work ahead.
Celtic begin their title defence at home to Dundee on Monday night, with Hearts – last season’s runners-up – heading to Aberdeen on Saturday evening, as the rest of the league now steps into a season already crackling with early tension.
