In news that might be greeted with something of a mixed reaction by Rangers fans, Cyriel Dessers, as reported yesterday, did not get his standby call up to the Nigeria squad for the Africa Cup of Nations, which begins tomorrow.
Nice’s Terem Moffi got the nod instead, which means Dessers remains with the Rangers squad and doesn’t go to the Ivory Coast for the showpiece African tournament.
This news will have a mixed reaction – some fans believe, as they did (more rightly) with Sam Lammers, that horns come out from his head and he’s toxic, and useless. Some were delighted that he’d get the call up, despite it leaving Rangers with zero established strikers up front.
Others are a bit more pragmatic. Technically-brilliant he isn’t, but any Rangers fan who denies Dessers’ numbers and ignores his being Rangers’ second-top goal contributor behind only James Tavernier is looking at his admittedly cumbersome play and not what he actually does.
And without him, Rangers would have had just Fabio Silva, who is only just settling into his new surroundings as a total freshman at Ibrox, up front. He has of course cameo’d in Govan and to decent effect, but he’s a long way from proven yet and he’s not even particularly match fit.
So to be quite happy that he was all we’d have was a bit short sighted. But that’s some Rangers fans for ya!
As it is, Dessers and Silva will push each other on, and while Rangers clearly need one more body minimum up front, at least we do now have two fit and available strikers up front which gives manager Philippe Clement some options in that area. He wants more, but two is evidently better than one.
As for Nigeria and Moffi, funnily enough that was an odd call, because Moffi himself won’t be linking up with his national squad till Sunday at the earliest, meaning he’ll be coming in cold and not having had any major integration time with the national team.
Dessers would have gone straight away.
But that wasn’t to be, and the story ends there.