McInnes's Rangers: no wins, no luck, no Chermiti

The result that stings most

Losing at home to Hibs is not a neutral result for Rangers. It is the kind of defeat that gets replayed on phone screens in Glasgow pubs for the rest of the week. McInnes, appointed to steady a club that expects to challenge Celtic every single season, has now gone three matches without a win and has a home loss to a rival already on his record. The pressure that comes with managing at Ibrox arrived early — it always does — but this is a sharper edge than most new managers face.

The Chermiti problem

The defeat was made worse by an injury to Youssef Chermiti, one of Rangers' significant summer signings. The nature and timeline of the injury has not been confirmed, according to BBC Sport, but losing a striker brought in to make a difference — before the season has properly started — is the kind of subplot that turns a bad week into a genuinely difficult one. McInnes will need goals from somewhere while Chermiti is sidelined.

How long before this becomes a crisis?

Three games is too small a sample to write off a manager, and McInnes knows Ibrox well enough to understand what the job demands. But the calendar does not wait for confidence to build. Rangers fans have watched Celtic operate at a different level for most of the last decade — patience is not the currency it once was in Govan. A winless run that stretches into double figures of days, a home defeat already banked, and a striker on the treatment table: McInnes will know the next result matters more than most third-game results should.

He did not look like a man who thought the performance deserved the scoreline. He might be right. The table does not care either way.