Derek McInnes’ lust for revenge against Celtic as Ibrox boss will be his downfall next season

Well, well, well…

So the SMSM has decided.

Andrew Cavenagh and the Ibrox board have played a blinder.

A masterstroke of boardroom genius.

A piece of business so cunning it should be taught at Harvard.

Indeed.

This is the line being pumped out by Kris Boyd in the Scottish Sun this morning.

Dutifully amplified across every back page in the country.

Let me get this straight.

The same board that gave Danny Rohl twelve months to find his feet, took a seven-figure bung from RB Salzburg for the privilege of waving him off, and finished the season with a Premiership trophy haul of zero…

…has now hired a 54-year-old whose one and only major honour came in 2014.

A man who has just shat the bed in a title race on the final day of the season.

And this is a blinder?

Give me a f*****g break.

Boyd reckons Derek McInnes is “ready” for the Ibrox pressure. Convenient, isn’t it??

Here is the gospel according to the village idiot:

I think if it does materialise the way you’d expect it to do, you have got to say Andrew Cavenagh and the Rangers board have played a blinder.

From potentially having to pay another manager off, Rangers are now in a situation where they are going to get money for Danny Rohl and for me, an upgrade in the manager.

Listen it is a big step for Derek, he has managed Aberdeen and Hearts and done well at Kilmarnock and St Johnstone, but this is a different kettle of fish.

There is no getting away from it. The pressures and demands he will know, but at this moment and stage of his life, it is a job he is ready for.

A different kettle of fish.

Boyd’s own words.

The same Boyd who then tells us, with a straight face, that Del boy is “ready for it”.

Ready for what, exactly?

The pressure cooker that broke Beale?

Ready for the pressure cooker that broke Clement?

Or Ready for the pressure cooker that just broke Rohl?

Ready, after he’s just folded under a fraction of that same pressure at Tynecastle?

Hearts led the league from August until the 87th minute of the final day.

87th minute.

And McInnes Heartsed it.

That is the man the SMSM are now telling us is “ready” for the Ibrox pressure cooker.

I rest my case.

But here is the real problem, and Kris Boyd hasn’t even spotted it yet.

McInnes isn’t walking into Ibrox to manage a football club.

He’s walking in to settle a score.

Make no mistake.

The man lost that title to us on the last day of the season.

Right between the eyes.

And now he’s got the chance to put it right against the club that put him on his arse.

Revenge.

Pure and simple.

That’s the angle nobody in the SMSM is willing to entertain.

Because if they did, they’d have to admit something.

That he’s walking in with motivations that have nothing to do with football.

And everything to do with grudge.

The Ibrox board hasn’t hired a coach.

They’ve hired a man with a chip on his shoulder the size of Tynecastle.

And that is the worst possible mindset to take into Scotland’s pressure cooker.

A man who already crumbles under pressure.

Now adding the pressure of his own personal vendetta to the pressure of the Ibrox job.

Genius.

And lest you think I’m overcooking the revenge angle, here is what the klanbase are actually celebrating.

Well, I’ll let them speak for themselves.

A wee post from one Adam Dunn, on the platform formerly known as Twitter, doing the rounds yesterday afternoon:

Derek Mcinnes.

The identity of our club will be brought back. He is not afraid to speak out against the corrupt scum we will be facing in the league. We will be hard to beat. Bigotry at the Christmas nights out. Hates the tarriers. Brown brogues.

I’m all in.

– Adam Dunn (@AdamDunn1872) June 15, 2026

Right.

Let me get this straight.

“The identity of our club will be brought back.”

That identity.

The one their CEO has spent six months telling the BBC they’re operating at “molecular level” to move past.

Apparently not.

“Hates the tarriers.”

A slur the original Ibrox club used to throw at Irish Catholics in the East End.

Before the lid was nailed shut in 2012.

“Bigotry at the Christmas nights out.”

A nostalgia trip to the staff Christmas parties that did make the papers.

For all the wrong reasons.

“Brown brogues.”

The blazer and the tie.

The brogues and the full ‘real Raynjurz’ uniform, dusted off and reissued.

“I’m all in.”

Indeed he is.

This is what the Ibrox klanbase is celebrating.

Not a football appointment.

An ethno-religious one.

The mask, as ever, has slipped.

And it has slipped within twenty-four hours of the appointment going through.

That’s the welcome McInnes is walking into.

That’s the expectation he is now being asked to deliver against.

Not three points on a Saturday.

The “identity”.

The restoration of “the kulture”.

The settling of scores against the tarriers on the other side of the city.

And when results turn?

Or when the inevitable injuries hit?

When the inevitable European humiliation rolls around?

When the inevitable refereeing decision goes the wrong way?

The same klanbase who today is “all in” will tomorrow be all out.

And Del boy?

With the chip on his shoulder.

The glass ceiling above his head.

And the lust for revenge in his belly.

He will fold like a cheap deckchair.

So enjoy the honeymoon, peepul.

Enjoy the back pages.

Take great satisfaction in the blinder your ‘molecular’ chairman played in landing McInnes.

Enjoy the “different kettle of fish” warnings from the village idiot.

Enjoy the Adam Dunn manifestos in your group chat.

Because the honeymoon is the only part of the McInnes era you are going to enjoy.

Mark my words.

A man who couldn’t handle the pressure at Tynecastle has just signed up to do it at Ibrox.

A man with one major trophy in twelve years has just been declared an “upgrade”.

The very same man who lost the title on the final day has just been handed the dagger to “exact revenge”.

And the blinder the Ibrox board think they’ve played?

It’ll be them blinded, in the end.

They’ll be blinded by their own revenge fantasy.

Blinded by their own klanbase’s expectations.

Blinded by an appointment that is far more about settling a Tynecastle score than it is about Premiership points.

As I said yesterday, McInnes will be there or thereabouts in August.

He’ll be talking a good game in September.

But by the time the chips are down in February?

By the time St. Martin the Hunskelper has Celtic settled into another title charge?

The revenge fantasy will be the very thing that breaks Del boy.

It always does, with him.

The bottom line is this.

You cannot hire a man already wired to crumble.

Hand him a personal vendetta to chase.

And then act surprised when he crumbles even quicker.

But hey, what do I know?

I’m just ranting into the void.

Set zero expectations, peepul, and you won’t be disappointed.

Anything after that is a bonus…

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