McInnes' Rangers serve up stodgy 12-course banquet of huff and puff

Of all the dullness on display at Ibrox, Cammy Devlin's five-minute cameo stood apart. A blink-and-you'll-miss-him appearance from a substitute who was supposed to be a leader, a senior man, a guy to nurse Rangers to the endgame with their flimsy 1-0 lead intact.

Devlin's night ended with a deserved red card for a ridiculous and entirely needless lunge that fried the brain.

The midfielder was brought to Rangers to add steel, not to contribute to the mental frailties that dogged them on the run-in last season. He was meant to be part of the solution, not at risk of being part of the problem.

The red could have put Rangers' win in jeopardy, had Jablonec been up to much, which they weren't. They were organised but unthreatening. They were committed but lacked much resembling a goal threat.

They were creative only in their histrionics and their survival tactics. You haven't seen such swooning since the golden age of the Hollywood diva.

Rangers should put them out of the competition next week. Should. There are no guarantees. Derek McInnes is experienced and wily and hard working, but his team is not a smart team, not yet anyhow.

They're not coached to find space, to drag defences out of shape and then hit them hard. They're workmanlike in the main. Honest, but awfully lacking in inspiration.

It was Rangers' job to come up with the creativity to break Jablonec down and what a meal they made of it. A 12-course banquet of huff and puff finally brought to an end by one of the few bouts of coherent football that led to Ryan Naderi's winner.

The positives won't take long. A one-goal lead to take to Jablonec next week; a clean-sheet; industry from Djeidi Gassama and James Penrice; assured defending from Olwethu Makhanya; signs of improvement in Naderi; a full-time whistle not accompanied by booing, as the half-time whistle had been.

It was a tough watch, though. Rangers in that first half lacked movement and cleverness and X-factor. They were an eyesore. Time and again, defenders looked downfield for a pass to hit only to see their team-mates looking back at them, unmoving and tightly marked.

Poor old Emmanuel Fernandez had another difficult experience but there were times when you had sympathy for him.

Wanting to be positive in possession and play forward, he had no options, nowhere to go but back, which drew groans of derision. When he gambled with a risky ball and failed to find a target, there was another uprising. Angry, angry, angry.

He gestured at one point, a waved arm that suggested he wasn't over-burdened with runners ahead of him.

McInnes spent much of his night walking madly about his technical area. That's a confined space, but his step count will have been stratospheric. He probably crashed through the 10,000 steps in 15 minutes. Perhaps he needs help, another coach with a different skill-set, new and more imaginative thinking.

You took all of this in and wondered what Andrew Cavenagh must have been making of it in America.

Eleven new signings in recent weeks and close to 30 since his consortium moved in last summer. Their running total of transfer fees long since careered past the £25m mark. Last January, it sped across the £35m barrier and now it's knocking on the door of £50-£60m on new players.

These players. These largely dull, pedestrian Rangers men playing in front of a mostly hushed and increasingly tired stadium with 15,000 empty seats. They won on the night, and so hope lives for some of kind of European story this season, but it was so desperately lacking.

Within the club there is patience and a mindset that this is a long road Rangers are on and an acceptance they're only at the start of it.

There is a commitment to spend and spend again. Cavenagh and his backers have been true to their word, they have stumped up fortunes. Have they spent well? Right now, it's impossible to say that they have.

Compare this to Celtic's elan and fluidity the night before. Compare the sustained class of Camilo Duran to anything that Rangers have. Duran cost somewhere between five and six million.

Where is Rangers' Duran? Where is their Callum McGregor, their Benjamin Nygren, their Kieran Tierney, their standard-setters, their goal machines, their players who drive the team forward?

Where, indeed, is their Nico Raskin? On the bench on the night. Unused. A wee injury, apparently. Nothing to do with the rumoured gathering interest from Fenerbahce, we were told.

The rumour-machine was in overdrive in pre-match. Is he going? How much is he going for? Who's coming in? Where's he coming in from?

The plates continue to spin at Ibrox as McInnes attempts to put order on all of this, to forge a coherent team from all the disparate parts.

He has to make it work against a backdrop of Celtic threatening to run amok with what they already have and what they might soon add if the £40m of Champions League loot drops into their lap next week.

An hour after the final whistle, the only sound heard at Ibrox was the hum of three lawnmowers gliding over the turf. It was quiet, eerily so.

You half wondered if McInnes might come out for a moment just to experience how calm it can be out there. Take it while he can. There won't be much stillness in this place for a while yet.