Rangers Exits Europa League: McInnes Declares Team Not Ready

Rangers crashed out of the Europa League with a whimper and a warning from their own manager: this team is “not ready” for this level.

A 1-1 draw with Jagiellonia Bialystok at Ibrox sealed a 3-2 aggregate defeat in the third qualifying round and delivered the club’s earliest European exit since 2017. The boos at full-time were loud, prolonged and, in Derek McInnes’ own words, “justified”.

“Not good enough” – McInnes pulls no punches

McInnes, still searching for his first win after four games in charge, did not bother dressing it up.

“It wasn't good enough. What we served up, particularly second half, wasn't good enough,” the former Rangers midfielder said, accepting the crowd’s anger.

He knows exactly what the club expects.

“We need to be honest, the club's built for Europa League and Champions League and that's the intention, to get there.

“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.”

This is a manager who understands the scale of the job and isn’t hiding from it. The problem for Rangers is that the evidence is mounting quickly on the pitch.

Tactical gamble, fragile return

Missing left-back Tuur Rommens and striker Youssef Chermiti through injury, McInnes rolled the dice. He switched to a back three and made five changes from Sunday’s defeat by Hibernian, asking Gassama and Yakota to operate as de facto wing-backs.

“I felt we had to make the game open and it was a bit too open at times in the first half. Gassama and Yakota playing as kind of effectively wing-backs, we were asking a lot of them at times,” he admitted.

The risk did bring some reward. Rangers created penalty-box pressure, found a goal and, for a spell, looked like they might drag the tie back.

“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.”

Then the familiar pattern returned. A decent spell. A promising platform. And then it all slipped away.

“Once again, it's not another 90-minute performance,” McInnes 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.”

“Inexplicable” goal and loss of composure

The decisive moment left McInnes exasperated. The concession that killed Rangers’ momentum was, in his eyes, avoidable in the most basic way.

“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.

“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.”

It was as stark an assessment as any Rangers manager has delivered in recent years: not about effort, but about game intelligence and decision-making when it mattered most.

Sixth manager, same problems

McInnes is Rangers’ sixth permanent manager since Steven Gerrard walked away in 2021. The churn in the dugout has not been matched by progress on the pitch, and this start only underlines the instability.

Yet he remains adamant he can turn it.

“What we served up last year wasn't good enough. You get a job for a reason,” the former Hearts head coach said.

“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 door has slammed shut. The transfer window is still open. A League Cup tie against the holders looms on Sunday.

If this team really isn’t ready for Europe, McInnes now has to prove he can at least build one ready to handle the demands at home.