McInnes should expect the ‘stench of complacency’ if he’s going to start with 7 players who succumbed to Celtic and Hearts last season

Well, well, well.

One game in, and Keith Jackson has already declared a state of emergency at Ibrox.

The great man himself put fingers to keyboard this morning to inform us, in the Record, that Derek McInnes “already knows there’s a stench of complacency about some of these R*****s players.”

A stench of complacency.

His words, not mine.

And do you know what?

Astonishingly, I actually agree with him.

I don’t say that very often about a Keith Jackson article, so let me savour the moment.

Jackson reckons Staunch Del has inherited “a bunch of habitual under achievers” who “hardly boast a winners’ medal between them.”

He’s bang on the money there.

He says they “appear to believe themselves to be a great deal better at playing football than they actually are.”

Spot on again, Keith.

He even reminds us that they “finished third in a perennial two horse race for a very good reason having failed, once again, to add a single piece of silverware to the cabinet.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

The only problem is that Keith forgot to ask the most obvious question of all.

Who picked them?

Because here’s the wee detail that the entire Stenography Corps managed to skate right over this morning.

Del boy had 8 new signings in the door on Friday night.

Eight.

And he chose to start the game at Tannadice with only 4 of them.

Which means he sent out 7 of the very serial losers he “inherited” to get the season underway.

Seven of the players who succumbed to Celtic and last season.

Seven of the players who succumbed to Derek McInnes’ own Hearts side last season, the very ones he left “trailing in his maroon slip stream”, to use Jackson’s own purple prose.

So let me get this straight.

The players are lazy, complacent, medal-free under achievers who think they’re better than they are.

And the brand new staunch messiah looked at his squad, looked at his 8 shiny new recruits, and decided the best way to launch the revolution was to start seven of the deadbeats anyway.

But sure, it’s the players who reek of complacency.

Convenient, isn’t it??

You can’t manufacture a fresh start by naming the same team sheet that finished third.

I wrote about this on Saturday, in both of my articles.

The angry bears on Follow Follow had already worked it out before Keith did.

“Absolute f****n garbage”, one of them wept.

“Bring back the world Cup!”, cried another.

The klanbase turned on their new hero within about 90 minutes of the first whistle of the season.

And now the SMSM’s own man is scrambling to explain it away, one game in, with a full state-of-the-nation column.

You almost feel for him.

Almost.

Naturally, Keith needed a scapegoat, and he found one.

Manny Fernandez.

Jackson dedicates the guts of his article to hanging Dundee United’s opener around the Nigerian’s neck.

The “big black mark next to his name.”

The jogging back while Lachlan Rose “was stamping down on the accelerator.”

The arms held out, “drawing daggers at others.”

And look, maybe Fernandez did switch off.

But isn’t it just the handiest thing in the world?

Pin the whole shambolic evening on one defender, and quietly let the man who picked the team walk away without a mark against his name.

The manager who started seven serial losers gets to be the wronged hero of the piece.

The player who was one of those he “inherited” gets to be the villain.

Do me a favour.

Jackson himself admits Fernandez was “widely regarded as the best of a bad lot last season.”

The best of a bad lot.

So if your best player is the one you’re hanging out to dry after game one, what exactly does that tell you about the other six you sent out alongside him?

And then we get to the real punchline.

Keith signs off by telling us Del boy will be “knocking on the door of his recruitment department first thing on Monday morning.”

That Dan Purdy and Robbie Thelwell “would be well advised to come up with some meaningful answers.”

Because the poor soul is still “crying out for wide men and difference makers.”

Eight signings in the door.

And he’s crying out for more.

I covered this on Saturday too, McInnes standing there after a 1-1 draw with 8 new faces already signed and moaning that “the new signings need to land pretty soon.”

Stevie G was the last chequebook manager at Ibrox.

It seems Staunch Del is auditioning to be the next.

Spend the GDP of a small nation, start the serial losers anyway, drop points on day one, then send the recruitment lads a rocket because it must be their fault.

That’s staunch leadership, that is.

Jackson tells us McInnes “is likely to be ruthless” with anyone who doesn’t share his drive to succeed.

Grand.

He can start with the man who wrote out Friday’s team sheet.

Because there’s an injury to Ben Godfrey to add to the fun.

Which means Del has “little option” but to rely on the very same Fernandez he’s supposedly furious with.

Poland on Thursday. Jagiellonia Bialystok.

The scapegoat, starting again. Ruthless.

Right up until he needs the scapegoat to actually play, at which point all is forgiven.

Make no mistake, the stench Keith can smell is real.

But it isn’t drifting off the players.

It’s drifting down from the technical area.

Off a man in a club blazer and a pair of platform brogues.

A man who looked at a squad of habitual losers and decided seven of them were good enough to start.

You reap what you sow, Del.

We kick off against Dundee tonight with 2 clear at the top for the taking.

I’ll leave Keith to work out the rest…

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