One goal, 12 games: Striker's nightmare season makes Rangers' Dessers deal looks inspired

08/05/2024 09:30

By Cyriel Dessers’ own admission, he is not the ‘cleanest’ striker. The £4.5 million Rangers centre-forward is not the most technically-gifted number nine to walk through the doors of Ibrox. Far from it.

But as he took his tally to 20 goals for the season with a soaring header late on against St Mirren – more than Rangers predecessor Alfredo Morelos managed in three of his five campaigns in Glasgow – a signing which looked destined to go down in history as a ‘dud’ a few months ago was in no mood to let his many, many doubters off scot-free.

"Obviously, to score 20 is a beautiful number. Not a lot of Rangers strikers have got to those numbers in the last few years, so it's a nice milestone for me,” Cyriel Dessers smiled.

“I know that, if I play minutes, if I play games, I'm always going to score goals. I'm a striker who maybe on the eye isn't the most beautiful striker or the most clean striker. I think with me, as a striker, it's easy to see what's not there.

"But as I am in life, and I think this is a good lesson for everybody, I love to look at what's there. I'm talking about winning the battles with the defenders. About running. Last week, I broke my record for high-intensity runs, for sprints. To do all of this for the team is of the same importance as scoring goals.

"These are the things people in the stands or on social media don't see immediately but they are there and they benefit the team. So it's about more than just the goals but I'm of course very happy to reach that number.

"But I want more!"

Cyriel Dessers has earned Rangers respect

When you consider the struggles of some of the other strikers who were linked with Rangers before Mick Beale settled on Dessers, the signing of the one-time Eredivisie Golden Boot winner looks all the more like good business. Matija Frigan has found the net only five times in Belgium. Ditto Petar Ratkov in Austria.

Nikola Krstovic endured run of just one in 17 Serie A matches for Lecce before a recent return to form, while Dessers’ tally of 20 is nineteen more than Josh Maja managed in a miserable season at West Brom interrupted by injury.

According to Rangers Review, there was interest in the former Sunderland man last summer, Maja instead swapping Bordeaux for The Baggies when his contract expired.

Now, Maja might possess the sort of poise and elegance Dessers can only dream of but they say the best ability is availability. And Dessers, indefatigable and indestructible, has not missed a single match throughout 2023/24 through injury or illness. The Nigeria international made his 50th Rangers appearance already in Saturday’s 4-1 hammering of Kilmarnock.

Maja, in contrast, missed a combined total of nearly 200 days out injured during his time in France. Those fitness issues have returned with a vengeance at West Brom too, Maja ending his first league season back this side of the Channel with only one goal in 12 league matches.

This weekend’s play-off semi-final with Southampton may still offer Maja the chance to belatedly secure hero status, and end a nightmare season with something of a dream moment. But, as Baggies boss Carlos Corberan pointed out before Maja’s five-minute cameo against Preston on final day, returning to the pitch is one thing. Rediscovering your rhythm, after so long out, is an altogether different challenge.

Nightmare season for Josh Maja at West Brom

"One thing is availability, the other thing is the skill to perform,” Corberan says, via Express and Star.

"When the player is available, it doesn't mean anything. The player can have the medical possibility to play, but it doesn't mean he has the possibility to impact the game.

"I put him on the pitch without risk. The only risk was to not give him the minutes we gave. If I don't, then I don't imagine him playing the games.

"He needs these minutes to show the player he is. The other day I watched Maja very fatigued from minute 15, and it was a very positive thing – the more fatigue he is accumulating, the more ready he is going to be in the next game.

“Without fatigue there isn't enough stimulation to make him ready."

Dessers may not be everybody’s cup of tea. Ok, he probably should have scored a damn sight more than 20, given the amount of chances he has missed. But 50 appearances, and 20 goals, are numbers that deserve a great deal of respect when you factor in who Rangers could have brought in instead.