Rangers boss Derek McInnes was under pressure after a slow start to the season, but the Light Blues claimed their first William Hill Premiership win of the campaign with a hard-fought 1-0 victory at Aberdeen
Derek McInnes has admitted he was finally able to savour a Rangers display after their narrow 1-0 victory against Aberdeen at Pittodrie.
The Gers manager had been facing mounting scrutiny following only two victories from seven fixtures since his summer switch from Hearts, which included elimination from both the Europa League qualifiers and Europa Conference League play-off rounds.
McInnes has recruited 12 fresh faces to the squad, amongst them first-timer Kim Min-su, the 20 year old South Korean wide player who joined from Girona on a four-year contract for an estimated £8.5million fee, and he made a promising impression before his second-half withdrawal.
Nevertheless, it was captain Lawrence Shankland’s 69th-minute spot-kick that ultimately secured the Light Blues’ opening William Hill Premiership triumph of the campaign.
The ex-Aberdeen manager McInnes commented: “Probably for the first time this season, I’ve really enjoyed watching the team.
“There’s been moments of enjoyment. There’s been a couple of wins and some passages of play, but we know when you come here you can’t be sparkling for 90 minutes but you need to compete, and you need to bring quality, and I thought we did all that in abundance today.
“Strong performance, deserved win. I thought we were good in the game. I thought we looked like a team, a sense of the team that I would like us to be.
“I think the added bit of quality from Min-su at the top of the pitch was much needed. We’ve been looking for that for a while now, so it’s great that we managed to get him in.
“Any sort of win today was vitally important for obvious reasons. So the fact of the matter is we’ve won a tough away game, and deservedly so.”
Rangers continue to be heavily linked with Portland Timbers forward Kevin Kelsy, while Belgian midfielder Nicolas Raskin was once more missing from the squad as rumours persist regarding his potential departure.
McInnes commented: “In terms of outs, I don’t think there’s anything imminent on that. There’s certainly not been any offers for Nico.
“Obviously, it’s normally the last couple of days of the window when things really crank up, so we need to be primed for that.
“We are really keen to get a striker in that we want.”
Aberdeen manager Stephen Robinson expressed his frustration with referee Matthew MacDermid’s call to disallow captain Kevin Nisbet’s goal for a foul on Dujon Sterling in the Rangers penalty area, particularly after an earlier penalty appeal against the same Rangers defender had been waved away when his side were trailing 1-0.
The Northern Irishman remarked: “If I could give my thoughts (I would), but the authorities make sure we don’t give our thoughts.
“You all saw the game and the only thing I can comment on is I don’t know who judges the amount of force.
“There wasn’t enough for Kevin to get a penalty and there was enough to disallow the goal. Someone has made that decision rightly or wrongly and it certainly affects the game.
“They seemed quite similar to me but I’m not a referee.
“I can only control the things that I can in terms of our performance. There was lots of good stuff with battling qualities and real desire and determination.”
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