DEREK MCINNES JUST PROVED CELTIC HAVE BROKEN RANGERS — HIS COMMENTS AFTER THE HIBS DEFEAT SAY IT ALL!
**DEREK MCINNES JUST PROVED CELTIC HAVE BROKEN RANGERS — HIS COMMENTS AFTER THE HIBS DEFEAT SAY IT ALL!**
In the aftermath of a devastating 2-1 home defeat to Hibernian at Ibrox on Sunday, August 9, 2026, new Rangers manager Derek McInnes stood in front of the media and delivered comments that cut deeper than any post-match analysis of a single result. He spoke of frustration, of shared pain with the supporters, and of a club still reeling from years of underachievement. In doing so, the former Hearts boss inadvertently laid bare a truth that Celtic fans have long celebrated and Rangers supporters have long dreaded: the dominance of their great rivals has not merely won titles — it has broken something fundamental at Ibrox.
McInnes, appointed in June 2026 on a three-year deal after Danny Röhl’s departure to RB Salzburg, arrived with the weight of expectation that comes with managing one of Scotland’s traditional powerhouses. A former Rangers player from the late 1990s, a boyhood fan, and a manager who had just guided Hearts to a remarkable second-place finish the previous season (narrowly missing the title to Celtic on the final day), he was seen by many as the right man to restore credibility. Yet after three games without a win — a draw at Dundee United, a Europa League qualifying loss in Poland, and now this damaging Premiership reverse at home — the early narrative has shifted dramatically.
Hibernian’s victory was clinical and opportunistic. Josh Campbell converted a controversial first-half penalty awarded after a VAR intervention involving Vanja Dragojević and Jason Kerr. Rangers equalised late through a Miguel Chaiwa own goal from a Djeidi Gassama cross, only for substitute Callum Wright to steal the points with a deflected effort deep into stoppage time. It was Hibs’ third consecutive win at Ibrox. For McInnes, it was his first home defeat to the Easter Road side in his managerial career. Star striker Youssef Chermiti, the subject of a rejected club-record bid from Galatasaray, was stretchered off with a knee injury that required a brace and a scan. The result left Rangers with a single point from two league games, already five points adrift of Celtic, who had just dismantled Kilmarnock 5-1 and sit top of the table alongside St Mirren on six points.
What elevated the afternoon from a disappointing result into something more revealing were McInnes’s own words. He did not demand more time. He did not paper over the cracks with bland positivity. Instead, he met the fans’ anger head-on.
“I understand the frustration. I share the frustration,” he said. “It’s 15 years of frustration here at this club. Nobody knows that more than me. We’ve won one title and the fans didn’t even get to see the title win. So we’re a by-product. Every Rangers team is a by-product of that frustration. So the Rangers fans just want to see their team winning and so do I. And we will get there. I’m not going to ask the fans for more patience because I think the Rangers fans have been patient enough. So it’s up to us to give them a winning team more often than not. And we will get there. We could do with some help.”
Those sentences are extraordinary. They acknowledge a structural and psychological scar that stretches back to the post-liquidation years and the long period of Celtic supremacy. Celtic have claimed 14 of the last 15 Premiership titles. The single Rangers title in that span came in the strange, empty-stadium conditions of the Covid season under Steven Gerrard — a triumph celebrated but never properly witnessed by the support in the stands. McInnes, by framing every subsequent Rangers side as a “by-product” of that accumulated hurt, essentially conceded that the psychological damage inflicted by Celtic’s sustained excellence has become part of the club’s DNA.
He went further in other interviews. “We’re not as bad as some people will be saying at the minute,” he insisted, while also claiming Rangers were the better team on the day, that the penalty was soft, and that a lot of things had “transpired against us.” He praised the players’ effort in the second half and spoke of the need to “batten down the hatches, stay strong, stay together.” Yet the dominant note was one of shared desolation. “No, I’m not asking for more time,” he stressed. The implication is clear: the clock is already ticking loudly at Ibrox, and the margin for error is minimal.
This is not the language of a manager who believes he has inherited a sleeping giant ready to awaken. It is the language of a man who understands that the institution he now leads has been systematically outpaced, out-resourced in key periods, and, more damagingly, out-mentality by its oldest rivals. Celtic’s ability to maintain high standards, recruit smartly, and project an aura of inevitability has not only delivered silverware; it has eroded the self-belief that once defined Rangers. When a new manager — one of the most experienced and respected Scottish coaches of his generation — arrives and immediately frames the challenge in terms of a 15-year emotional deficit, it is hard not to conclude that the imbalance has become structural.
The context of the 2025-26 season makes the point sharper. Hearts, under McInnes, pushed Celtic all the way and finished second, eight points clear of Rangers. That campaign demonstrated that a well-run, ambitious club outside the Old Firm could challenge for the title. Yet even that near-miss ended in familiar fashion: Celtic found a way on the final day. Rangers, by contrast, finished third and endured another campaign of drift and managerial change. The appointment of McInnes was supposed to signal a reset — a return to Scottish know-how, intensity, and understanding of the unique pressures of the Glasgow derby. Three games in, the early evidence suggests the deeper problems remain.
There is, of course, still time. The transfer window is open. McInnes has spoken of working hard to bring bodies in and of integrating new signings while managing fitness levels. The Europa League campaign continues with a second leg against Jagiellonia Białystok. Domestic fixtures against St Mirren and others will offer opportunities to build momentum. Supporters who stayed to the end on Sunday voiced their displeasure, but the Ibrox faithful have historically shown loyalty when they sense genuine progress. McInnes’s refusal to plead for patience may yet be interpreted as a strength — a willingness to own the standards rather than lower them.
Yet the comments themselves are the story. By openly acknowledging the “15 years of frustration” and describing successive teams as by-products of that pain, McInnes has articulated what many observers have long felt. Celtic’s dominance has not been merely about points and trophies. It has been about psychological warfare conducted over more than a decade. Every title parade at Celtic Park, every comfortable victory in the league, every moment when Rangers appeared reactive rather than proactive has compounded a sense of institutional inferiority. When the manager of the challenger club validates that narrative so explicitly, it becomes difficult to dismiss.
Football is cyclical. Dynasties end. Celtic’s current run, while historic, will eventually face genuine competition again. Whether that competition comes from a revitalised Rangers under McInnes or from elsewhere remains to be seen. What is already clear is that the new Rangers manager understands the scale of the mountain. His post-Hibernian remarks were not spin or deflection. They were an admission. And in the unforgiving environment of the Old Firm, such honesty can be both a strength and a vulnerability.
For Celtic supporters, the words will be savoured as further evidence that their club’s sustained excellence has left lasting scars. For Rangers fans, they will sting precisely because they ring true. Fifteen years of frustration does not vanish with a new manager, a handful of signings, or defiant press-conference statements. It is dismantled only by consistent winning, by restoring the aura that once made Ibrox a fortress and Rangers a serial champion.
McInnes has promised that the team will get there. The early results and the tone of his own analysis suggest the journey will be long and difficult. In openly recognising the depth of the problem, he has, perhaps unintentionally, confirmed what the headline claims: Celtic have not just beaten Rangers on the pitch for most of the past decade and a half. They have, in a profound sense, broken them. The recovery, if it comes, will require more than tactical adjustments. It will require a fundamental rebuilding of belief. On the evidence of Sunday and the comments that followed, that process has only just begun — and the clock is already running.
