Breaking News:Rangers stick is SAVAGE and I’m still convinced Clement needs a new striker – Barry Ferguson
After a long summer of never-ending negativity it was a relief for Rangers to take a few positives out of Tuesday night’s Champions League qualifier in Poland. And no one deserves a break more than Cyriel Dessers.
I was absolutely delighted for the big man when he popped up with that equaliser in injury time because, for the last year, he’s had folk queuing up to have a go over his finishing. I’ve felt for him because some of the stick has been savage and, to be brutally honest, way over the top as well.
Is Dessers the finished article as a Rangers No.9? No. Can Philippe Clement hang his hat on him as the first-choice striker for the rest of the season? I wouldn’t be too sure about that either. But let’s look at the facts over his first 12 months because, as a Rangers striker, first and foremost you are judged on the amount of goals you score.
And he ended his first season at the club with 22 of them. I don’t care what anyone says, that’s a decent return. Yes, the critics like to moan about his link-up play and they’ll argue he has missed more chances than he has taken. Fair enough. He’d probably admit himself he could have scored about 10 more than he did.
Remember, he’s not on penalties or free-kicks either so all of those goals came from open play which is quite an achievement. Just take a look at his goal against Dynamo Kyiv and you’ll see what he’s all about when he’s at the top of his game. It was Dessers who started the move inside his own half with a beautiful little lay-off to Tom Lawrence. What about his touch by the way?
Lawrence then played it out wide to Jefte who picked out Vaclav Cerny with a great diagonal pass. Dessers was actually fouled while all this was going on but still managed to get back up on to his feet and make a 50-yard run into the box, like all good strikers should.
The easiest thing in the world would have been for him to stand back and admire his part in the build-up. Believe me, I’ve played with some strikers who were guilty of that. But Dessers had the desire to bust a gut and attack the front post. His only thought was to get into the box and he was rewarded for it.
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