{"id":221088,"date":"2025-10-17T20:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/221088\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T20:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:59:07","slug":"scottish-premiership-picks-eyes-on-ibrox-derek-mcinnes-kilmarnock-return-motherwell-striker-in-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/221088\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Premiership picks: Eyes on Ibrox, Derek McInnes’ Kilmarnock return & Motherwell striker in focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rangers were still able to ruin their fans’ weekend without kicking a ball when the shock news of Steven Gerrard’s rejection<\/a> emerged on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

It feels like a long time ago now that we watched Russell Martin get smuggled out of the Falkirk Stadium following a 1-1 draw last time out.<\/p>\n

Martin was sacked hours later, ending a calamitous 123-day tenure with the Ibrox club eighth in the table after seven games played.<\/p>\n

What next in this wild Rangers campaign, then? It is a visit from Dundee United on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Youth coach Steven Smith has been taking training as the hierarchy hunt for a new first-team boss, with Kevin Muscat emerging as the favourite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reports suggest former Rangers full-back Muscat would see out the season at current club Shanghai Port before any potential move to Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Muscat’s side are closing in on another Chinese Super League title, leading the division by two points with just four games remaining.<\/p>\n

The top-flight campaign in China ends on 22 November, but Rangers are in desperate need of immediate results as Hearts and Celtic pull away at the summit.<\/p>\n

After an impressive fourth-placed finish last term, Jim Goodwin’s new-look United started this season in similar fashion.<\/p>\n

However, failure to beat Kilmarnock and Livingston in back-to-back home games has halted their momentum.<\/p>\n

The Tannadice club have only won one of their last 21 away league games at Rangers, losing 10 of their last 11 since a 3-2 victory in April 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rangers were still able to ruin their fans’ weekend without kicking a ball when the shock news of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-221088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}