Sticking with Cyriel Dessers up front has played a significant role in putting Philippe Clement on the brink of the sack as Rangers manager.
The fact the Ibrox club only just seem to be realising and accepting that the Nigerian international is not, has not been and never will be the answer as the main focal point of the attack really ought to ask serious questions of Nils Koppen too.
From the moment Dessers walked in the door from Cremonese in a deal totalling £5.5million in the summer of 2023, when scattercash ex-boss Michael Beale was making Richard Pryor in Brewster’s Millions look like Scrooge, he came across as an awkward fit.
When he was straight through on Joe Hart in the second Old Firm game of the season at Parkhead in the December and couldn’t even get a shot off, opinions most definitely started to harden amid the fluttering of many, many red flags.
Now? Well, Dessers really needs no introduction. He’s the bloke who scores his fair share of goals — normally, in games Rangers would be expected to win — and still has his reputation defined by the quite incomprehensible list of sitters he has missed.
He’s a guy who simply cannot be trusted to keep his head and do what strikers do when it matters. And with Clement leaving him out for the tremendous, bamboozling and utterly mind-melting 4-1 midweek win away to Nice in the Europa League in favour of Hamza Igamane, it feels like the penny has finally dropped with the Belgian. Way, way too late.
The image of Cyriel Dessers reacting to a missed opportunity in NIce was a familiar sight
On as a late substitute, the Nigerian still managed to spurn a great chance, as is now customary
Hamza Igamane was given the striking role and grasped his chance with a smartly-taken double
If proof of the need for change in the No 9 position was required, look at Dessers’ miss late on against the French. Ball in from the bye-line from James Tavernier, he takes a touch right in front of goal in an unmarked position and, yes, you’ve guessed it, twists his foot like a circus contortionist and puts it past the post when all it needed was a rollicking great toebash.
It’s just that you’re not surprised by Dessers any more. You expect this stuff from him. Give him the ball in the centre-circle with six dustbins ahead of him and plenty of time to think and you’d still price him up at odds-against to put the ball in the net. And that’s why he can’t go on.
Over and above the need for greater mobility and pace in the final third, if Rangers are going to win things, they need a centre-forward who can take any chances that come his way. Be an on-field assassin.
Dessers has failed miserably in the killer matches, the ones that decide silverware. He has barely laid a glove on Celtic.
Even in the Europa League last year, he destroyed any hopes of Rangers making the last eight when squandering a golden chance at Ibrox against Benfica in the last 16 and then attempting a stupid chop inside the area that led to the Portuguese breaking upfield and scoring.
It’s the fact it has got to this stage, though, that remains a damning indictment of Clement. And for those still struggling to figure out why Koppen was promoted from recruitment chief to technical director before a CEO had been put into place, it creates a heck of a lot of questions over his judgment and actions too.
Circumstances, to a degree, resulted in Dessers being pushed front and centre in attack. Danilo has had well-documented injury issues. Kemar Roofe, who left in summer, was about as resilient as a panna cotta short on gelatin. At times, there was really no one left to play in attack.
But here’s the rub. Rangers have had two transfer windows to address the elephant in the room — that they’d spent a fortune on a striker you can’t trust when one-on-one with the opposition goalie.
Ibrox manager Philippe Clement has been far too loyal for far too long to Dessers
In January 2024, with Celtic and Brendan Rodgers anything but a happy couple and a Premiership title very clearly there to be won, Clement and Koppen brought in Fabio Silva on loan from Wolves. The Portuguese was only just settling into the club’s winter camp in La Manga when the alarm bells were blaring.
‘I’m not really, really a No 9 because I don’t like to be stuck in the box,’ simpered Silva. ‘I don’t like to focus on goals and assists because the things in my life happen naturally.’
Sure enough, Silva wasn’t really the answer to anything. And leaving with Bluenoses cursing his very presence did happen naturally, sure enough.
So, what did Rangers do come the summer? Spend a reported seven figures on a player in Igamane, who had zero experience of proper football and wasn’t even ready to train with the first-team. That’s what.
Listen, there is nothing wrong with looking for unvarnished talents at low prices and developing them. It is something Rangers have to do much more of and, going by his display in Nice, the 22-year-old Moroccan definitely has something.
However, Rangers blew the championship against a weak and wobbling Celtic side last season by failing to address their problems in attack and, by definition, saw their best chance of landing a £40m Champions League windfall go up in smoke.
But they still had a second bite at the cherry. They faced a desperately ordinary Dynamo Kyiv in the third qualifying round of the tournament in early August. The way the draw worked out, they would have come up against a similarly beatable Red Bull Salzburg in the play-off.
But they couldn’t deal with the Ukrainians. Dessers did grab a last-gasp equaliser in the first leg in Poland, but, having a nightmare at Hampden while seeing his side go down 2-0 in the return, the 29-year-old ended up throwing his hands up at the support as their frustrations boiled over.
Nils Koppen has been promoted to technical director but the move has left many fans puzzled
And that was that. Hopes of Champions League cash over. And Celtic, with all their advantages in terms of money in the bank and general infrastructure, given a free pass to sail over the horizon and out of sight.
Clement hung his hat on Dessers and got what you’d expect in return. As for Koppen, you have to ask why he didn’t see the need for a ready-made alternative and get Dessers out the door.
There were teams in Italy having a sniff, although that interest did not result in a concrete bid. However, reports stated that MLS outfit Atlanta United were primed to pay £4.5m for him — with Dessers supposedly kyboshing the move in the end.
With that in mind, it seems all the more crazy that he was still the main option up front until Igamane barged him out of the way on Thursday.
There’s an Old Firm cup final in a fortnight and the youngster is surely now in pole position to start with Danilo as his chief understudy.
Dessers’ tea is finally out, but it’s too late to salvage the league title that slipped through the club’s hands last season. It’s too late to make this term’s title race a contest either. And the £40m that could have come from Europe is long gone too.
It’s why Clement’s tea is out as well, no matter what happens in the Europa League. Whether Koppen deserved his promotion on the back of all this — along with other issues relating to overall recruitment plus the exact degree of relevant experience on his CV — is a matter for further discussion.
Helpfully, there’s a club AGM on Thursday at which the Belgian and the other top bananas will be open to interrogation on all that and more.
The floor is yours, Rangers fans. Don’t miss an open goal the way Cyriel does.
Dessers has all too often failed in the biggest matches, often being ridiculed for missed chances
No excuses for Pedro if Scots fall short again
Pedro Martinez Losa spent the early part of the current European Championship qualifying campaign complaining about agendas against his Scotland women’s team and a negative narrative being developed.
This, of course, is what happens when you fail to qualify for the World Cup finals as a result of getting turned over at home by an ordinary Republic of Ireland team in the play-offs.
And it is what will happen again should the national side fail to escape from Finland on Tuesday with a victory and finish up on the outside looking in for a third major tournament in a row.
Making it to the 2019 World Cup was a fantastic platform that should have been lift-off for women’s football in this country. For so many different reasons, it wasn’t — and even now, there are real questions to be asked about the way the SFA have managed the national team and the wider game since.
Having drawn 0-0 in a disappointing first leg at Hampden on Friday, Martinez Losa and his players are up against it in Helsinki. Yet, the Finns are below Scotland in the FIFA world rankings.
Like that Ireland game, this is a match Martinez Losa’s team should win.
There was a strong case to be made for the Spaniard getting the bullet after that last World Cup campaign. That will surely be unavoidable if Scotland blow it again.
Martinez Losa reflects on a missed opportunity in the first leg against Finland at Easter Road
Perth Saints must address shortcomings
Simo Valakari seems to have a reasonable grip on what’s needed at St Johnstone. A centre-back in Bozo Mikulic has already been brought in, a right-back is on the way and, surely, a goalie capable of becoming the established No 1 will follow.
Health issues notwithstanding, new owner Adam Webb and his team really need to make a statement in the January window. And on the basis of recent revelations, that extends to behind-the-scenes operations as well as shoring up a dodgy rearguard on the field.
CEO Fran Smith’s recent admission that there has been no scouting department at the club was alarming and explains much. Head of football operations Gus MacPherson has now been entrusted with helping out on that front, but, with respect, it all sounds a little haphazard.
Whilst still doing his old admin job, MacPherson, in Smith’s words, ‘does a little bit of analysis on games we watch from different areas, Wyscout and things like that.’ He will also go and watch players the manager is interested in, but, as experienced and dependable as MacPherson is, it feels like too much for one guy.
There are talks going on over an analytics tie-up with a university in America, but the likes of Saints, where bringing in players on the cheap and selling for profit must be part of the business plan, must surely see worth in establishing a settled recruitment and scouting team.
Indeed, it seems crazy that, until recently, they had no one doing it. But that’s top-level Scottish football for you.
