The 45-year-old looks certain to remain at Aberdeen though he appears the ideal man to rebuild Rangers.
With Derek McInnes falling as far as fifth place in Sky Bet’s Rangers manager odds, it seems the chances of him swapping second place Aberdeen for the side one place and six points below them in the Scottish Premier League table are increasingly unlikely.
Especially when you take into account Dons chairman Steve Milne’s staunch refusal to consider allowing the 45-year-old to even answer a phone call from the Ibrox chiefs.
“We’ll work hard to make sure we can keep Derek here as long as we can,” he said in quotes reported by the Evening Times. “It wasn’t just a short-term job. It was to build this club into something it’s capable of being.
“They’ve made tremendous progress in the past four years, but Derek would openly admit that we still have a long way to go to, to make sure that we’re not just a top club in Scottish football, but that we’re starting to rebuild that reputation in Europe again.
“I’d like to believe that Derek started something off – he thinks he’s maybe halfway through the journey, it’s maybe a third. We want to see him here to finish the job that he took on.”
Ironically, it seems Aberdeen are sharing almost identical targets with the blue-clad Glaswegian giants – and have identified McInnes as the ideal man to turn them into reality.
Leading the club to their first major trophy in 19 years with the Scottish League Cup in his debut campaign, McInnes also ended Aberdeen’s four-year omission from European football. And, in the supposedly difficult second season, he went one better, spearheading the team’s rise to second place.
Milne has clearly stated that Aberdeen’s ambitions are to rebuild the club, close the gap to Celtic domestically as well as make strides in Europe – almost mirroring the targets put in place at Ibrox.
Therefore, with McInnes looking to be beyond Rangers reach, is there a better man for the job out there?
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