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No excuses for Rangers as McInnes era is poised to begin
The climactic end to the Scottish Premiership, coupled with the summer of football and managerial upheaval that followed, has made it somewhat easy to forget that Rangers finished last term third.
A lot has happened since head coach Danny Rohl, who has been replaced by Derek McInnes, watched his team limp to the finish after their season unravelled in a post-split collapse.
The memories of the Ibrox side's demanding fanbase are not that short, though.
They are expecting far better from a club that followed up a reported £40m spending spree with a second successive trophyless season.
But as the McInnes era prepares to kick into gear, are those same supporters heading into the new campaign with fewer reasons to fear more failure?
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Now Leicester City boss, Martin was sacked after a brutal end to his brief spell. And after dragging the side back into the Premiership title fight before it all went wrong, Rohl too has been and gone, leaving for Red Bull Salzburg in June.
The nature of Rangers' end to last season - their hopes ending with four straight post-split defeats - meant Rohl would have been up against it with the fans on day one of the 2026-27 campaign.
Any credit the German had banked was diminished and a stuttering start to the new season would inevitably have led to the familiar social media meme poking fun at the vicious Rangers cycle once again reaching the managerial departure stage.
A "mutual agreement" that resulted in Rohl heading to Salzburg should help the Ibrox club avoid the recent trend of ripping everything up and starting again in the autumn, with McInnes tasked with taking the team forward.
Some have viewed the former Aberdeen boss, who turned down interest from Rangers in 2017, as a sensible appointment for years, while others have had doubts.
But taking Hearts to within about 10 minutes of a historic Scottish top-flight title went some way to unifying the view that the 55-year-old is now the right man.
"The timing's perfect," former Rangers midfielder Andy Halliday told BBC Scotland. "McInnes will probably admit himself he's now a more well-rounded manager than he was back in 2017.
"He's been through a title race, he's had ups and downs throughout that, so I think he's in the best possible place to take the job on. It's just a natural fit."
In Old Firm fan speak, boyhood Rangers fan McInnes 'gets it', having played at Ibrox from 1995 to 2000.
He won league and cup silverware during that spell but supporters will still harbour concerns about his ability to win big as a manager.
His only major honour across two decades in the dugout was the 2014 League Cup with Aberdeen, won on penalties after a goalless draw with Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
Only evidence will win over every doubter within Rangers' support, who have also lamented the lack of a figurehead during a tumultuous period of managerial upheaval.
Since Steven Gerrard's 2021 exit, appointments have been perceived by some more as project coaches but the Ibrox club have made it clear McInnes arrives as a manager, not a head coach.
A lack of leadership on the pitch has also come under scrutiny, with James Tavernier regularly the fall guy.
That criticism was arguably often unfair but the long-serving right-back departed this summer, vacating the captaincy and leaving a void to fill. Experienced goalkeeper Jack Butland has also left.
McInnes does not shy away from the fact he wants a Scottish core running through his squads and the arrivals of Lawrence Shankland and Ross McCrorie - also boyhood fans of the club - have strengthened the local contingent.
Rangers great Allan McGregor, who knows the club inside out, has also been brought back as goalkeeping coach.
Shankland, meanwhile, joins as a leader after captaining Hearts - as does former Sunderland skipper Dan Neil - but the Scotland striker also arrives as a seasoned Premiership scorer, having netted 88 goals in four years at Tynecastle.
Rangers fans and connected pundits had been crying out for the club to sign the striker long before he joined this summer.
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"As a Rangers striker, hitting 20 goals should be the minimum," says Halliday, who played with Shankland at Hearts.
"If you look at the past few seasons, there have not been many Rangers number nines who have done that.
"If the service is there for Shankland, he's as close to a guarantee as you can possibly get to a 20-goal-a-season striker."
Halliday says McInnes "knows the pressure cooker he's stepping into". It will be like nothing he has experienced in the dugout previously.
Expectation may be high at Aberdeen and Hearts but the relentless need to win at the Old Firm is on another level.
As a former Rangers player who was brought up supporting the club, he will be aware of that, although he will still have to convince some fans that he has what it takes to drive the side back to consistently winning major honours.
An unknown quantity in Europe, having only managed in qualifiers, he will also have to navigate two ties to reach the Europa League proper, where Rangers have excelled in recent years.
But it is domestic pressure that his post-Gerrard predecessors have shown signs of struggling with, whether that has meant dragging the team into title fights and falling at the final hurdle or failing to mount a serious challenge.
On other occasions, the reality has been that they have been competing with a Celtic side boasting superior spending power and quality.
Following the takeover of the club by a US-based consortium, who now face a potentially defining season, the financial argument has quietened somewhat after a supposed £40m spend last season.
Despite the big backing, Martin immediately put himself on the back foot with an opening-day draw at Motherwell last August.
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