Derek McInnes has taken 19 points from a possible 24 in his first eight Scottish Premiership games as Rangers manager, a stark contrast to the eight points his predecessor Russell Martin had managed at the same stage last season. The early indicators are beginning to stack up in McInnes's favour, particularly when compared to where the club was headed 12 months ago.
The mention of Russell Martin's name will send a shiver down the spine of supporters who are watching a similar car crash unfold under the same man's watch at Leicester City right now. Martin didn't even make it to eight league games after his appointment in the summer of 2025. He was escorted off the premises at Falkirk after just seven of them, having drawn five, registering just a single win away at Livingston and losing the other one at home to Hearts.
That gave him a running total of eight points from a possible 21 and meant that Rangers were pretty much a busted flush before the campaign had got properly out of its starting blocks. Martin has had eight League One games in charge at the King Power. He's won two of them, drawn three and lost three. Leicester City currently sit in 17th position in English football's third tier on the back of a 3-1 defeat at home to Peterborough United at the weekend.
Low bar set by predecessors
It all sounds scarily familiar to the complete and utter debacle he left behind on the other side of the border. Game eight for Rangers last season saw two more points given up at home to Dundee United under caretaker boss Stevie Smith before Danny Rohl was handed the task of attempting to wade into the thick of that early carnage and repair as much of it as possible. Eight games. Nine points. Martin most certainly set a low bar.
McInnes, on the other hand, has taken 19 points from a possible 24 and, in the process, he's spat out six league wins on the bounce. To his credit, Rohl did manage a similar run of successive wins but it took the German until January 25 to rack them up. All of which provides some reasonably solid evidence that McInnes might be succeeding in his mission to make Rangers relevant again, in terms of sticking up a credible challenge for a Premiership title which Celtic have claimed in 14 out of the last 15 years.
Yes, the sample size needs to be filled out and made a whole lot more sturdy before it can be properly examined and deemed as reliable. But, coming as it does, hot on the heels of a challenge which lasted all the way into injury time of the final game of last season, there does at least seem to be genuine reason to believe that McInnes might be capable of going one step further this time around.
Building momentum after early setbacks
Having brought that back catalogue with him across the M8 after his one and only campaign in charge of Hearts, McInnes most certainly has a better idea than most of what will be required if he is to relieve Celtic of their crown jewels. And, despite the bloody nosed traumas of back-to-back eliminations from two European competitions in his early days, as well as dropping five points in his opening two league games against Dundee United and HIbs, he now appears to be building momentum and making some fairly serious headway.
The relatively flimsy nature of Saturday's 3-1 win at home to Kilmarnock serves as a sharp and timely reminder that there is much work still for McInnes to do. Yes, Rangers may have romped into a three goal lead in less than 45 minutes but the shakiness of their second half performance could have allowed the visitors to make a most unlikely comeback after the half time interval. With Kilmarnock currently anchored to the bottom of the top flight table, there's a strong argument to be made that the fixture list did McInnes a favour after the manager got his players back from an elongated international break.
Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is that three more points were posted on the board and, for a fleeting moment, that was enough to take Rangers into pole position at the top of the table until Celtic responded with an emphatic winning performance at Motherwell the following lunchtime.
Clear run ahead
In other words, this is beginning to look and feel like a very different kind of challenge from a Rangers side which was so glaringly unfit for purpose before McInnes was head hunted as Rohl's replacement back in the summer. And, as mortified as McInnes must have been by those qualification failures in the Europa League and Conference League, he may also be quietly relieved that his midweeks will be free for the foreseeable future, while Celtic and Hearts are busy crisscrossing the continent.
Both of them will be in action on Thursday night before they come together in Glasgow's east end on Sunday afternoon. Indeed, Celtic's trip to face Benfica in Lisbon has messy, collateral damage written all over it. Either way, Rangers will have a clear run and plenty of time on the training pitch to prepare for a Saturday night visit to Dundee, where they will have another chance to knock the champions off their perch for a few hours at least.
Rangers will have to be a great deal sharper and energetic on Tayside than they were at the weekend if they are to extend this run of wins to seven on the bounce. McInnes will have worked that one out for himself which is probably why he shouldered some of the blame for Saturday's lackluster display when he conceded afterwards that he had resisted the temptation to freshen up his starting XI. Eight games in, it's still too early to say with certainty if Rangers have suddenly become the real deal - or not. But if these numbers should continue to pile up in the right direction, then so McInnes will have to be taken more and more seriously as a Rangers manager of some significant substance.
