Rangers striker Cyriel Dessers scored his 17th goal of the season in their 1-2 defeat to Manchester United in the Europa League at Old Trafford, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Dessers is rumoured to be pushing for an exit from the club, before the close of the January transfer window after losing his spot to Hamza Igamane still has two years left on his deal at the club.
Despite his very good return in front of goal, his worth to the Scottish side divides opinion among fans of the team leading to some boos over the weekend. However he has been openly backed by coach Philippe Clement who is a huge admirer of his finishing abilities.
At international level his goal scoring prowess at club level haven’t been seen as good enough to earn him a spot in the Nigerian team for a sustained period. He has six caps for Nigeria with two goals.
Ironically he has a better games to goal ratio than every other striker who is playing second fiddle to main man Victor Osimhen, making his omission the more bewildering and hard to explain. Even Dessers I believe has no knowledge about his sparse caps in the last few years.
He scored the first goal of the Jose Peseiro era as coach, he also scored the first goal of the start of the tenure of Finidi George but on both occasions never got a look in after then.
His best run in front of goal the past three years came during the tenure of Austine Eguavoen during the AFCON qualifiers, but still wants seen as good enough to have him in the squad for any of the game.
Capped by Rohr after an extra ordinary season in the Netherlands where he scored 18 goals in 29 games. He got snubbed afterwards and even his return of 21 goals in 47 games for Feyenoord wasn’t seen as good enough by Rohr to hand him another chance.
With Eric Chelle now in charge and the Super Eagles needing goals to make it to the 2026 world cup, will Dessers who presently has the best record of all Nigerian forward in Europe at the moment be in the mix?
Will Chelle look back at his goal at Old Trafford and say the manner of his finish will be useful against Rwanda and Zimbabwe respectively in March?
Time will tell.
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
