Nearly man McInnes finally has Rangers job he really always wanted

When Derek McInnes was appointed head coach of Hearts last May, he let it be known that this was the job he felt he should have had years before.

The role was "everything I wanted", he said at the time.

And no doubt he meant it, but things move rapidly in football management. Thirteen months, and one season, later he's dropped Hearts for Rangers.

As soon as Rangers indicated a desire to take him to Ibrox, there was a certainty about the deal being done. It was just a matter of when, not if.

You could understand if Hearts folk are livid with him right now, but the sense is that not many of them are not overly fussed.

McInnes always was and always will be a Rangers man. As brilliantly as he did in a remarkable tilt for the title last season, it's hard to envisage a majority of fans at Tynecastle shedding too many tears for him.

He almost gave them the greatest day of their lives when coming within three minutes of winning the Scottish Premiership, but he was never really one of them, never likely to be a legacy manager, not with the Rangers gig coming up so often in recent times.

Sooner or later, McInnes was going to Ibrox and pretty much everyone knew it.

In his season in Edinburgh, he adapted to - but was never fully comfortable with - the way Hearts do business these days.

McInnes is the type of manager who values control, but in the new world of Hearts, where Jamestown Analytics are so powerful, he was never going to get the authority he was used to at Kilmarnock and, most especially, Aberdeen.

He will get it at Rangers, or a strong version of it. And he'll get money to spend, more transfer cash than he's ever had in his managerial career.

You could accuse McInnes of disloyalty to Hearts, but in the realpolitik of football this was an easy, and understandable, decision for him to make.

The Rangers owners have spent relative fortunes in little over a year in charge, but they will go again this summer, very possibly in a significant way. That's a hell of a carrot to a manager who almost won last season's title on buttons.

Arriving at the club in a position of significant strength, McInnes will run the football department the way he chooses.

No interference from data experts questioning why he isn't giving game time to 'their' players; no rejection of players he is sweet on because they don't register highly on the analytics; no having to coach other players given to him because their numbers are high on the Jamestown system.

Rangers are now McInnes' train set, but with power comes pressure and responsibility. Nothing but a Premiership title will do next season.

Danny Rohl had a crack at it and failed and there are no laments for him among the supporters, not after Rangers finished third in the league last season. Philippe Clement got them to second and they couldn't wait to see the back of the Belgian.

McInnes is a persuasive man but he, more than anybody, knows that talk is cheap at Ibrox these days.

There's an angry desperation for titles, a weariness at being off the pace. The league has to be won and no amount of rationalisation, however valid, will protect McInnes if it's not.

He was, in many ways, the obvious choice. He knows the club, understands the league and communicates excellently.

He's a good tactician, as the Rangers owners found out to their cost when going up against his Hearts team last season. He's tough and has never been accused of lacking in self-confidence.

Throughout Hearts' near-glory season, when club records tumbled like skittles in an alley, his messaging was outstanding.

A big personality is needed at a club the size of Rangers and McInnes is, unquestionably, a big personality.

There is a devil's advocate element to all of this, though.

McInnes has won the Championship with St Johnstone in his early days and again with Kilmarnock in 2021-22, but he is not - as yet - a proven winner of trophies when going up against top-flight opposition.

He did an amount of good things in his eight years at Aberdeen, his three full seasons at Kilmarnock, and in his one campaign at Hearts.

But, outside of those victories in the second tier, he only has one big trophy to his name as a manager - a League Cup win with the Dons 12 years ago.

That substantive spell at Pittodrie has many nuances and can be debated in different ways.

He inherited a mess and tidied it up. He galvanised a troubled club that was bobbing about in eighth and ninth place in the league. His finishing positions in the league were third, second, second, second, second, fourth, fourth and fourth.

On the face of it, being the best of the rest behind Celtic (and for one season, Rangers) is terrific, but there are caveats.

In three of those seasons there was no Rangers or Hibs in the Premiership and in one of them there was no Hearts either. It was still impressive work, but in evaluating McInnes as a manager, it's relevant detail.

He took Aberdeen to Hampden so many times that it was almost like a second home. League Cup finals in 2013-14, 2016-17, 2018-19 and a Scottish Cup final in 2016-17.

Celtic were his nemesis, and nobody could blame him for losing to them, but McInnes also lost cup ties to Dundee United, Hibs, St Johnstone, Dundee, Hearts, Motherwell, Hearts again, St Mirren, Motherwell again and United again.

Since he last won a trophy with a Premiership club, St Johnstone, Inverness, Hibs, St Johnstone again and Aberdeen have all won the Scottish Cup and Ross County, St Johnstone and St Mirren have won the League Cup.

There's a long list of managers, outside of the Old Firm, who have done so - Tommy Wright, John Hughes, Alan Stubbs, Callum Davidson (twice), Jimmy Thelin, Jim McIntyre and Stephen Robinson.

There's still a touch of the nearly man about McInnes. His battles with Martin O'Neill at Celtic and with whoever ends at Tynecastle will be compelling.

Hearts turned out to be a stepping stone, the job he wanted at the time, not the job he has wanted for all-time. He has his chance now, the one he's been waiting for.