Keevins predicts that McInnes will be gone if he loses the double header against Celtic…in other words McInnes is here to stay

Yesterday morning, right on cue, Hugh Keevins served up his latest offering on Derek McInnes.

In his usual Sunday drivel in the Record, he tells us the next eight days amount to a public trial of the Ibrox manager.

Two derby games back to back, with McInnes fighting to establish his credentials for the job he holds.

Two defeats, and the pressure on him becomes almost intolerable.

Well, I’ve got some good news this morning for anybody across the city who is worried about their manager.

Keevins has spoken.

Which means Derek McInnes is going absolutely nowhere.

The moment Keevins predicts something is the moment you put your house on the opposite happening.

The man has built an entire career out of being wrong in public, and getting paid handsomely for it.

He is wrong 99.9% of the time.

And on the rare occasion he does get one right, it’s because he’s backing a one horse race.

By the time Keevins gets round to writing his piece, fan media has already flogged the story to death.

Every possible angle covered, days in advance of him lifting a finger.

So he picks the outcome everybody else has already picked, dresses it up as insight, and cashes the cheque.

Nice work if you can get it.

Because when did Keevins last tell you something you didn’t already know?

When did he last put his name to a call that nobody else in the country was making?

I’ll wait.

Here is the line his whole article hangs on:

Two defeats against Celtic and the pressure on McInnes would reach an almost intolerable level for a man fighting to establish his credentials for the managerial position he holds.

Intolerable for who, exactly?

For the manager, or for the people who hired him?

The Ibrox board have just gone out on a limb to back this manager, and they are not binning him a fortnight later.

On Saturday I wrote about the record money the Ibrox side threw at the summer window.

£35.5 million in a single window, a Scottish record, and £5.4 million more than our lot managed.

Fourteen new players since he walked in the door from Hearts.

All of it signed off by Andrew Cavenagh, and every penny of it spent to back Derek McInnes.

They didn’t spend that to keep a caretaker warm.

So are we really to believe that a board who broke the Scottish spending record to arm their manager will sack him eight days later?

Because if they did, they would look utterly, spectacularly stupid.

You don’t hand a man fourteen players and then tell the world you got it wrong before the leaves are off the trees.

And that isn’t loyalty, by the way.

It’s self preservation.

Sacking him now would be an admission that the £35.5 million was handed to the wrong man.

It would mean writing off their whole summer as a waste of money.

Nobody in that boardroom is holding their hand up to that in September.

He’ll get until Christmas at the very least.

Probably a good deal longer than that.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend these two games don’t matter.

They matter enormously.

A League Cup quarter final at Ibrox followed by a league meeting is about as searching a test as this fixture list can produce for a new manager.

If McInnes loses both, his credibility with his own support is finished.

The Ibrox punters will turn on him inside a week, and they won’t turn back.

The ‘Govan Guardiola’ rebrand Keevins talks about certainly won’t be getting off the ground.

And personally, I’d take both wins in a heartbeat.

But losing your credibility and losing your job are two very different things in Scottish football.

Ask Silent Mike.

Our own board have taught us better than anybody that failure and the P45 are two entirely separate matters.

We have just been humiliated in Linz.

Not one person in our boardroom has been anywhere near a cardboard box.

No apology, no explanation, no accountability, nothing.

Just radio silence and a 74 year old manager left to carry the whole thing on his own.

And how many times have we been told somebody at Celtic Park was under pressure?

How many of them are still sitting exactly where they were?

So the idea that the Ibrox side will act ruthlessly where we would sit on our hands is for the birds.

They’re cut from exactly the same cloth as our lot.

Protect the investment first, and worry about the football later.

Both boards will tell you they’re taking the long term view.

What they actually mean is that nobody is getting sacked while there’s money on the table.

So no, I don’t buy a single word of it.

Keevins is doing what Keevins has always done – stirring the pot, lobbing out a prediction, and trusting that nobody keeps the receipts.

Well, some of us keep the receipts.

And I’ll tell you now, Derek McInnes will still be the Ibrox manager when these two games are done and dusted.

Win, lose or draw.

BECAUSE KEEVINS SAYS HE WON’T BE…

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