Time after time at Ibrox yesterday, the home crowd let out a familiar groan. It is the telling sound of a support that sums up the short and long-term pain of being a Rangers supporter: a by-product of the past and present and a fear the immediate future won't be different.
The short-term groan is the weary response to the ball going backwards rather than forwards; the pace of play slowing rather than quickening; the issues of last season, and the one before, and the one before, bleeding into the new campaign.
The long-term? A support desperate for a team to believe in, soul-searching once again just two games into a new campaign. It is difficult to remember that football is supposed to be an escape on days like yesterday.
This is a crowd drained of belief, and a team still not inspiring it. One of the most damning details from yesterday was the urgency and zip Rangers played with after equalising late on. Before then - between the 11th and 85th minutes - too often this felt like groundhog day.
Yes, the hosts had plenty of control of the ball but, particularly given Hibs had a lead to protect and were following a conservative game plan, how often were David Gray’s side truly under stress?
This was a game of football that kicked off the 2026/27 season at Ibrox, but it was indistinguishable in so many ways from so many previous campaigns. It felt like it belonged in any of Rangers’ recent seasons, underlined by the fact that Hibs have now won three consecutive games at Ibrox for the first time.
As Andrew Cavenagh and Paraag Marathe watched on, what would they have been thinking ahead of today’s shareholder meeting in the centre of Glasgow? Of course, it is still early: 36 games to go and all that. But three games without a win hardly offers a break from the storms of last season.
Once again, Rangers’ issues on the pitch could be distilled into one simple problem: they are a team who still seem unable to set the tempo when they have the ball.
This is hardly new and has informed so many of the contrasting European successes and domestic woes of recent seasons. While so much was wrong with the ideas Rangers landed upon last summer, the diagnosis was right: they needed an identity, something to fall back on, a collection of ideas capable of making slow days like yesterday fast and fun.
To boil it down further, they needed - and still need - to become a team capable of scoring regularly when the opposition park 11 men behind the ball.
So often, the reason Rangers have failed to score late goals in recent years is that they do not wear teams down, pin them back and corrode defences. McInnes admitted post-match that his team were "a wee bit safe" with the ball.
There was a desire to go forward quickly but, to do that against an opponent focused on protecting space and defending, you need to move them first. Probe and prod at the problem until a chink in the armour appears.
Of course, Derek McInnes knows this. Of course, he knows the weight of expectation he has inherited. The former Hearts manager has chopped and changed before and during games in search of solutions. Tellingly, he has now, on several occasions, emphasised that he needs certain reinforcements to play his way. Promising league debuts for Olwethu Makhanya and Daisuke Yokota help his case.
Yokota’s ability to create a couple of chances single-handedly yesterday tells you everything you need to know about where those solutions are required. So too does the use of four right-backs in three games.
The VAR decision to hand Hibs an early penalty, confirmed by Don Robertson, was a genuinely lamentable call. It was an example of the kind of re-refereeing that is so out of the blue that no one inside the stadium quite understands what is happening: the type of foul which means a referee is duty-bound to blow whenever there is contact at a corner. That would, therefore, mean awarding a penalty at every corner.
From there, though, familiar issues remained. An unwelcome script was followed. McInnes has now played four players at right-back in three games, with Vanja Dragojevic - inverting into midfield - the latest trial. He was taken off at the break, in part because of his yellow card.
McInnes has made substitutions and structural changes in each of his three games. In contrast to this time last year, when Russell Martin evangelically stuck to his ideals, there is no shame in admitting something is not working.
Had Shankland’s effort snuck inside the post, or Yokota’s cutback been converted rather than cleared off the line, perhaps the game’s trajectory would have swung differently. Even then, though, a familiar edge of resignation, desperation and anxiety filled the Ibrox air.
Perhaps, in the cold light of day, there were sufficient chances. There was a huge slice of luck attached to Hibs’ second goal as the hosts sought a winner of their own.
Still, the way Rangers have conceded chances has been alarming across the opening three matches. Dundee United probably should have won last weekend’s meeting, with a better chance than Callum Wright’s at Tannadice late on that ended up in Ivor Pandur's gloves.
But without a solid base, or core, to build around in these early games, Rangers have been too easy to score against and have found it difficult to score themselves. It is a bad recipe.
Here is the issue: Ibrox wills its team to play at pace, get after the game and make life uncomfortable for the opposition. But how do you do that when you are the team in possession?
Cammy Devlin at the base of midfield epitomised this. He is an excellent disruptor, someone who covers ground superbly well. But can he disrupt a man-for-man marking system in possession? Is he the player you want to have the greatest influence on the ball?
Too regularly, when the ball needed to be punched forward yesterday in the Australian’s possession and a pass instead travelled sideways. Since Steven Davis, John Lundstram, Nico Raskin, Connor Barron and Devlin have all fulfilled that role - all players more recognisable for their work without the ball than with it compared to Davis.
Rangers have not won league title after league title because of games like this. Ask yourself: in how many seasons over the past decade have they looked more comfortable in games with 40 per cent of the ball than with 60 per cent? Then contrast that with the number of matches they spend in either game state.
“It’s 15 years of frustration here at this club. Nobody knows that more than me. We won one title; 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,” McInnes said after the game.
Read more:
- Derek McInnes provides Youssef Chermiti injury update after being stretchered off
- Derek McInnes discusses Nico Raskin's Rangers future and ongoing recruitment work
We are three games into a new manager’s era, and that must be remembered. This is a problem inherited, rather than created, by McInnes. But for his team to become an exception to the norm of the past 15 years, the remainder of this window must be spent correcting the balance and getting to the nub of the issue. More players who can exploit opponents one-v-one, more solutions to solve days like this.
Because Rangers will not win until they win games like this - and to do that, they must become a side who are at their most comfortable in games where they dominate the ball.
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