Derek McInnes admits Rangers 'nervousness' over recent change amid sweat over 13 stars' condition

Rangers manager Derek McInnes believes the most recent international break has been too long and admitted to “nervousness” about many of his players being away with their national teams for nearly three weeks.

A change to the FIFA calendar after this summer’s World Cup resulted in the traditional three autumn two-week international breaks being condensed into one of three weeks, with four games, and then another in November for two weeks with two games. It means the domestic game has been put into cold storage for 20 days.

The break disrupted a six-game winning run for Rangers, which has brought the September manager of the month award for McInnes. The 55-year-old lamented not being able to work with the rump of his squad for a sizeable period of time, with 13 players away in total across the globe.

Rangers manager Derek McInnes was without 13 players during the recent international break. | SNS Group

“The break has been too long,” said McInnes ahead of Saturday’s Premiership match at home to Kilmarnock. “There's no two ways about it. It's unusually long. This is the first time this has been implemented. I just think that our players are away with different federations, working with different staff, travelling all over the world for four games.

“I think it's tough for the players to be away from their families and the like. But equally for us, there's a lot of nervousness about your players getting into other teams and other countries' hands for so long. They're all back in today, but they're not all training today. The time we get all back together and training together and pitch tomorrow, it'll be 19 days since the Celtic game. That's longer than a lot of tournaments for a lot of countries. For me, I know it's set in stone, but I'm not a fan of it to be honest.

“I think this is something that's seen as a good idea and it's something that I think is imposed now for the next three seasons. Rather than September and October being two separate ones, just putting it all together. Like I say, it's my first experience of it and if you're asking me, it just feels like the players have been too long away.”

McInnes accepted that a longer break may benefit some clubs - and explained that it had been challenging even to arrange 11-a-side matches during training for Rangers.

“Obviously, there's a significant amount of players, which maybe makes it feel a bit worse than it actually could be for some clubs,” added McInnes. “Maybe who maybe only two or three away, but having so many away has affected your training. You're only training with eight or nine senior players. You're bringing some younger ones up, but they've got their own obligations with games and whatever as well. Even being able to do 11 v 11 practises and things like that. Obviously, we arranged a game last weekend, but it does affect everything.

“It's not an excuse. We've got training tomorrow, we've got a game on Saturday. We've just got to do all we can to be prepared and ready for that one because we need to be ready for it.”