”Nice One Cyriel” – Rangers Fans Love Dessers And Don’t Want Him to Leave | OneFootball

The recent turnaround in popularity of Cyriel Dessers has left Ibrox Noise slightly amused, but also glad. Let’s not forget that before he became NiceOneCyril, Dessers was thoroughly maligned in the eyes of most fans, even despite the fact that at the start of his Rangers career, the Nigerian international assisted twice in the Champions League qualifiers while scoring quite healthily domestically too. While he was missing a lot of chances as well, nevertheless, he was still scoring. He was securing the currency that strikers are measured on.

But unfortunately, his style was a little ungainly, Bambi on ice, lacking in composure, as we say, missing those chances. It made him rather unpopular with a vast swathe of the Rangers support. Ibrox Noise was one of the few organisations who actually backed Dessers considerably and to the hilt, because we could see how many he was scoring. And while he didn’t exactly look overly polished, and Ronaldo he isn’t, he was getting the goals, he was getting the chances, and he was getting the back of the net more often than not.

Gary Lineker once said, if I’m not scoring, that’s not a problem. If I’m not in the position to actually score, that is a problem, because it questions my movement. Missing chances isn’t a problem for a striker, as long as they are getting those chances. Obviously, scoring does matter too, but movement is vital, and Dessers’ movement is very, very good. He gets the chances, he gets the positions, and he gets the goals. So yes, he does generally finish off, more often than not, the opportunities he makes for himself, by reading the flow of the game, reading the space, and finding the right movement to get into the box.

The Rangers fans en masse are now starting to see this, and are endorsing the idea of the former Feyenoord striker staying at Rangers — a welcome change. Do we actually think he is good enough to be the main nine? Maybe not. Rangers have three strikers — the one that we forget all the time, Danilo, Hamza Igamane, and of course, Dessers. Danilo we don’t trust in the slightest, because he’s always injured, never informing, he’s been here for two years. Dessers gets the goals, and does seem to be the main man. Igamane is very composed, but lacks a lot of maturity in his game.

However, the fact that Dessers’ popularity has risen is a testament to persistence. Ibrox Noise ran a straw poll recently, simply asking, are you happy if Dessers is to be sold? Yes or no. It stands at hundreds and hundreds of answers, and the vast, vast majority are unhappy if he is to be sold. They don’t want him to go. This is a change from when he was maligned aggressively throughout the season, and kept on being blamed for everything that went wrong.

It’s nice to see, it’s nice to see Dessers getting a bit of credit at last. He will never be Messi, he will never be Ronaldo, but he’s about as honest a striker as there is. And the fact that fans are panicking over the sale of him, potentially to AEK in Greece, is a huge example of how one player can turn it around this much in front of the fans.

And if you want further proof of just how much that perception has changed, here’s our breakdown of the shift. We also covered the initial transfer news when AEK interest was first reported.

For the most recent update on where that potential move stands, see this authoritative report.