Derek McInnes
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Derek John McInnes | ||
| Position(s) | Midfielder | ||
| Team information | |||
Current team | Millwall | ||
| ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of July 27 2006 | |||
Derek John McInnes (born 5 July, 1971 in Paisley) is a a Scottish football player currently playing for Millwall.
He began his professional career in 1988 at Greenock Morton where he played in 221 league games in seven seasons before the move to Rangers, where he spent spent almost five years and playing 53 games for the club. He also had a short loan spell at Stockport where he made 13 League appearances and he was also briefly at Toulouse. McInnes has gained much experience, particularly with his previous club West Bromwich Albion, having captained them to a place in the English Premiership in season 2002-03. He made 100 appearances and scored six times for the West Midlands side.
International recognition came late to McInnes as he made his Scotland debut on 21 August 2002, coming on for the last ten minutes against Denmark in a friendly. Three months later against Portugal he was sub again, coming on midway through the first half.
McInnes joined Dundee United on 11 July 2003 and was immediately installed as team captain by manager Ian McCall.
In his first full season at Tannadice, McInnes missed only three league and one cup game. He helped the Club to a fifth place finish in the Scottish Premier League and he scored twice, his first coming in the Scottish Cup against Dunfermline and his second in a league match against Hearts.
After an unsteady start to the 2004-05 season, McInnes began to take control again in the centre of midfield. He then picked up an injury with a third of the season to play, but managed to return to the first team for the Scottish Cup final at the end of the season.
In April 2006, United manager Craig Brewster announced McInnes was free to leave the club at the end of the current season, despite having a year of his contract left to run [1]. On 24 June 2006, it was announced McInnes had finally come to an agreement to be released from his contract and he subsequently joined Millwall.[2].