‘Mortified’: Derek McInnes takes full responsibility for Rangers’ embarrassing European exit at Jablonec

Rangers will not play another minute of European football this season. Beaten 4-3 on penalties by Jablonec in the Czech Republic on Thursday, they surrendered a 1-0 first-leg lead in the Conference League play-off. Manager Derek McInnes offered no excuses, calling the exit embarrassing and saying he takes full responsibility for it.

How Rangers lost to Jablonec

Rangers went out of the Conference League play-off 4-3 on penalties to Jablonec, despite going into the second leg with a one-goal cushion from the first leg. The shootout actually started well for the Scottish side, who led early in the sequence.

Findlay Curtis and James Penrice then missed the final two Rangers penalties, and those consecutive failures settled it. The club is now out of every UEFA competition for the rest of the campaign.

This was not a distant preliminary round. It was the last hurdle before the Conference League league phase, the most accessible entry point in the whole European calendar.

McInnes: ‘full responsibility’ for an embarrassing night

Derek McInnes publicly took full responsibility for the elimination. The Rangers manager said he was mortified by the performance and described the European exit as embarrassing, rather than pointing at his players or at the lottery of a shootout.

That kind of statement is unusual and tells you how serious the situation is. When a manager reaches for the word embarrassing in front of the cameras, he is conceding that the issue was not simply an unlucky penalty sequence but how his team handled a 1-0 lead.

The question now is how the board reacts, and how much credit McInnes retains to steady things in the Scottish league.

Worst European outcome since 2017

The defeat leaves Rangers without European football beyond August for the first time since the 2-1 aggregate loss to Luxembourg side Progres Niederkorn in the Europa League first qualifying round in 2017.

That comparison stings precisely because it drags Rangers back to one of the most uncomfortable nights in their recent European history. In between, the club had rebuilt a respectable continental standing, with long runs and a support used to travelling deep into the spring.

The damage is financial as well as sporting. Going out at the play-off stage costs a club the league-phase revenue, the associated UEFA coefficient points and the strongest recruitment argument any manager can offer a target.

The Premier League angle: the Conference is not a soft landing

In England the Conference League is often treated as a competition to be endured rather than enjoyed, yet English clubs have taken it seriously and been rewarded. West Ham won it in 2023 and Chelsea lifted it in 2025, both of which required navigating exactly the kind of tie Rangers have just lost.

The August play-off is the awkward part. Premier League and Scottish clubs enter it early in their own season against opponents who are already weeks into competitive football, often away from home in central or eastern Europe, with a full European campaign hanging on 180 minutes plus penalties.

Rangers’ exit is a warning for any British club that assumes qualification is a formality. A one-goal lead from the first leg guarantees nothing at all.

What happens next for Rangers

Without Europe, the Rangers season narrows to the Scottish league and the domestic cups. That eases the fixture load but sharpens the pressure, because every point dropped against Celtic will now be far more visible.

Financially, missing the league phase typically forces a club to revisit its recruitment plans. No moves have been officially announced in the wake of the exit, and any transfer activity would need official confirmation before it can be treated as done.

For McInnes, the immediate job is different: rebuilding the confidence of a dressing room that has just taken a heavy blow hundreds of miles from Ibrox, on a night he has already labelled embarrassing himself.

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