I’m embarrassed and mortified- It is all over for McInnes as he throws HIS players under the bus

The former Hearts boss has delivered two wins in seven matches since he launched the Staunch Revolution built around a management team and squad of players who got it.

After signing 12 new players and inheriting stars like Nico Raskin, Manny Fernandez, Ryan Naderi and Connor Barron his side have crashed out of two European competitions before the end of Auust.

There will be no Ibrox Thursday’s this season. Not even in the UEFA Conference.

Last season Russell Martin won two Champions League qualifiers, lost to Brugge and fell into the Europa League.

After defeats to Jagiellonia and Jablonec McInnes has no European distractions in the season ahead.

If he fails to beat Aberdeen on Sunday he could well be sacked before the team bus reaches Stonehaven on the way home.

Even a win at Pittodrie only delays the inevitable.

Traditionally October is the time of year for Ibrox managers to be sacked. It looks highly unlikely that McInnes will see out September. Defeat at Aberdeen and he might not see out August.

Wearing the brown brogues, blazer and flannels isn’t enough for a manager that has delivered one trophy win in 17 seasons. Decent enough for St Johnstone, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock and Hearts. But not for success starved bears.

After the game, in his first question at the media conference McInnes trashed his players. The players he has bought and selected.

Dan Neill was the first half captain. Lawrence Shankland for the second half.

Whatever happens a struggling manager can’t blame his players. Players always outlast managers.

McInnes’ job is reliant on winning at Aberdeen. He is dependent on players for that- the ones that he publicly slaughtered after being knocked out by Jablonec.

TIME UP FOR DEREK MCINNES

First of all, I’m embarrassed with the performance. I think the only people who represented the club well tonight were my staff, the support staff in the preparation. We do so much right here to get the players ready and in peak condition to go and perform.

And the supporters, who to a man were outstanding, getting behind the team despite watching what we all watched. It wasn’t a goodperformance at any stretch of the imagination.

Then you think you might just get through. It shouldn’t have come down to two boys, James Penrice and Findlay Curtis, in tears for missing a penalty kick. It shouldn’t have come down to that.

I’m not going to sit here and make any excuses whatsoever. It wasn’t good enough. Yes, there’s been a big turnover of players. Yes, we looked very inexperienced at times. But the responsibility is mine to make sure that we are better than what we served up tonight. And we were miles short, miles short.

I just feel as though we’re elite in everything we do in terms of the preparation, and the performance lacked everything, really, in terms of winning duels, winning second balls, looking after the ball, keeping things simple.

We’d worked on trying to build in a five and trying to play on the outside of their really narrow front-four shape to try and press us. We wanted to be more progressive once we got into the wider areas. There were little, minimal signs of that in the first half. But our press wasn’t good enough. When the press was good and we went man for man, we weren’t strong enough in the challenges. We weren’t strong enough to win second balls. We didn’t win tackles.

I thought the opposition were better than us in most aspects of the game. So, we got what we deserved. If we’d won it on penalties, we’d have taken it, of course, because of how important that is. But we’d have covered over the cracks, to be honest.

Tellingly McInnes concluded his first answer reflecting on himself and turning on the players with:

I’m mortified by the performance. I know you can lose games of football, but we should have enough in the building to take care of that tonight.

McInnes signed a three year contract in June to succeed Danny Rohl. The third managerial appointment under Andrew Cavenagh.

Having started off full of data and analytics Cavenagh had caved in to the baying mob.

Social and fan media now drives policy at Ibrox, those forces brought about the departures of Martin and Rohl.

It is now only a matter of time before those same groups get McInnes sacked.

Barry Ferguson is the likely Interim manager as fans clamour for Steven Gerrard or Graeme Souness to be appointed.