Cyriel Dessers on 'another level' as Andy Halliday takes aim at Rangers hero
04/01/2025 06:00 AM
When Michael Beale promised something different when he was planning to replace Alfredo Morelos for Rangers, he wasn't wrong.
It is one accusation that can't be thrown at Cyriel Dessers, that he isn't different, as the Rangers No.9 continues to frustrate an delight in equal measure.
Against Dundee, Dessers had as many shots on goal as he had successful passes as he celebrated joining an elite list of Rangers strikers.
The numbers speak for themselves; both the good and bad, with either argument capable of being proven as to whether or not the 30-year old is good enough.
Speaking on Clyde Superscoreboard, Andy Halliday has had his say on the Rangers enigma and whether or not Dessers would improve with better players around him.
Andy Halliday gives his verdict on Cyriel Dessers as Rangers’ saviour
One one hand, Dessers continues to get into good positions and has 30 goal contributions for the season, but on the other, he missed five big chances, all easier than the one he scored.
When asked if better players around him in the Rangers squad would lead to greater consistency, Halliday said:
"I don’t think being a better Rangers team would affect Cyriel Dessers at all, except from the fact that they’d maybe create more chances for them to miss or score because it is the enigma of Cyriel Dessers that we spoke about all season.
“It just looked as if it was going to be a 1v1 duel between Dessers and Trevor Carson for the full game. And Trevor Carson, needless to say, was coming out on top for a lot of it.
“But that was, I mean, we talk about him being an enigma, we can praise him one week and criticise him next week. That was another level at the weekend. I mean, 12 shots for one player on goal.
“For the weekend, 100%,” Halliday said about Dessers deserving criticism.
“Listen, and I praise him to the hilt for how much he can stick with it and still get in the right areas and eventually come up with the goods. But the chances that he had, specifically in the first half, he had three 1v1s alone in the first half.
"So I don’t think it should have took to the 92nd minute for Rangers to need to score the winner for the chances he had."
Is Halliday right to criticise Dessers?
Halliday is right. There is absolutely no indication that Dessers would improve his goal scoring return if he had players like Paul Gascoigne or Brian Laudrup supporting him.
There have been times when he has been feeding off scraps, but over the course of the season, he usually hits about par in terms of xG – expected goals.
The issue, as Halliday touches on, is that if Dessers was more composed, he wouldn't be needed to score the third or fourth goal.
It is a lot easier for Rangers to control a game from in front, plus opposition teams open up more and leave gaps if they are one or two goals behind.
There is no point trying to understand Cyriel Dessers, for example, his goal contribution per minute ratio is better than that of both Kyogo Furuhashi and Daizen Maeda, and they have been put on a pedestal by the Scottish media.
The difference, other than the obvious pace, is that they have spent the last few years scoring the first or second goal and putting their team 3-0 up at half-time.
