McInnes

The stats back up McInnes’ anger. Rangers had just over 46% possession during the 120 minutes in the Czech Republic, and just one shot on target.

They won fewer than 70% of their 16 tackles and committed 17 fouls.

“I can’t accept, and we shouldn’t accept, losing individual battles, duels, second balls, not winning enough tackles and just getting the momentum of the game going our way,” the former Hearts manager added.

“I thought we looked young, inexperienced at times. We’re trying to make some signings to help with that side of it but we need to do so much more as a team.

“We got what we deserved. If we’d won on penalties we would have taken it, of course, but it would only have covered over the cracks.

“I’m mortified with the performance. I know you can lose games of football but we should have enough in the building to take care of that tonight.”

Rangers had won their two previous games – a 5-1 win over St Mirren in the League Cup and the 1-0 victory against Jablonec at Ibrox – after drawing at Dundee United and losing at home to Hibernian in their opening two Premiership matches.

But McInnes feels this latest result may set them back.

“We went into this game scrambling for some sort of confidence, some positivity,” he said. “But I just thought the team that deserved to go through went through tonight and that’s hard for me to take.”

Lawrence Shankland is “too good not to score regularly” and is sure to have a “big influence” at Rangers whether or not he starts games, insists manager Derek McInnes.

Shankland has scored once in five outings since his move to Ibrox and the captain was used as a substitute on Sunday as Rangers beat St Mirren 5-1 for their first win of the season.

The 31-year-old Scotland striker hit 22 goals for Hearts last term working under McInnes.

“When you have a player like Lawrence, who knows his way around the penalty box and how to score goals, I do not worry too much about it,” said McInnes.

“He is too good not to score regularly. He has consistently shown that over a period of time in the Premiership.

“Sometimes people can over emphasise these things. For me, it is a case of letting him play his natural game.

“The best strikers have that instinctive side to their game, where everything looks natural and seamless. I have no doubt he will do well here.”

McInnes chose to start with Ryan Naderi in the Premier Sports Cup victory over St Mirren and the German opened the scoring, while Nico Raskin was skipper.

“I said that when I spoke to Lawrence,” added McInnes. “Being captain does not guarantee anything, and he accepted that. He is not going to stamp his feet about it. Having worked with Lawrence before, he is a brilliant captain and a brilliant boy.

“You want your captain to have a big influence on and off the pitch, and I believe Lawrence will have that.”

Shankland is one of 11 new signings at Rangers and the search is on for another centre forward since Youssef Chermiti is a long-term absentee.

“The priority is at the top end of the pitch,” said McInnes. “Number nines are normally more difficult ones to do, and it wasn’t an area we were looking at before Youseff’s injury.

“We’re hoping we can land on the one that we want and hopefully we can bring them here quickly.”

Thursday’s defeat – which drops Rangers into a Conference League play-off against Czechs Jablonec – comes on the back of the nightmare news Youssef Chermiti was ruled out with a long-term knee injury just after Rangers rejected a big-money bid for the 22-year-old.

It means Rangers have had to set their sights on recruiting a new striker in addition to the wingers and defenders McInnes had already targeted. He says the club are “working so hard to get the necessary type of players”, with PSV Eindhoven winger Couhaib Driouech set to be the latest arrival.

Halliday thinks the squad “shouldn’t be that imbalanced this late into the transfer window” and reckons they need “three centre-halves, one left-back, two, arguably, three wingers”.

“But the current squad that’s available should be enough to beat Dundee United, it should be enough to beat Hibs and, to be honest, it should be enough to beat Jagiellonia Bialystok,” he said.

Rangers were obviously hoping reuniting McInnes with Lawrence Shankland would be a winning formula after they went so close to wrenching the title away from Celtic while at Hearts last season.

However, former Rangers striker Steven Thompson thinks Shankland is already finding out the extra pressure he faces as the club’s new captain.

“It’s the weight of playing for Rangers, the weight of not having the start that he wanted, and the weight of taking a bad touch,” he said.

“At previous clubs, if you take a bad touch and give it away, you might get a few pelters. Here tonight, when Lawrence Shankland’s link-up play wasn’t that good or he should’ve had a shot when he didn’t, they are on you and it is going to take him a bit to get used to that I think. It’s not physical, it’s mental.”