As regulars will know, Ibrox Noise does enjoy our stats, and we have also given Nigerian striker Cyriel Dessers a lot more support than most.
In recent times his form started spiking, and he even got a song affectionately suggesting he wasn’t so bad any more, but even more recently he’s hit a bit of a bum patch (no goals or assists in 5) so he’s getting a bit more flack again.
But one of the most infuriating parts of his game for Rangers supporters is his offsides.
The question is is this just ‘in our heads’ or is Dessers genuinely offside a lot?
The answer is yes, he is.
In fact, Dessers, by a distance this season, with a rather worrying 28 offsides, is number one in the SPL with Ross County’s Simon Murray his only challenger with 21.
By comparison, and you knew we were going there, Hearts’ Lawrence Shankland has only been caught 7 times offside, which is extremely efficient for us being deep into March.
And for those wondering, Aberdeen’s Bojan Miovski is at a solid 17, which could be better, but gets nowhere near Dessers’ numbers.
After yet another big offside (albeit the resulting shot was saved v Benfica) Dessers is also extremely high in the Europa League, at 4 offsides, with the worst being Olympiacos’ Ayoub El Kaabi with 7. Abdallah Sima is also at 4.
So what do we make of this?
The clear conclusion is the timing of Dessers’ movement just isn’t good enough. He’s a big enough boy and an experienced enough striker to know when to time his runs, and clearly he’s fallen short in his career of what he should be at.
He’s got previous. Last season Dessers was third worst in Serie A for Cremonese with 24 offsides, Empoli’s Francesco Caputo being top with 10 more at 34.
So anyone hoping he can be coached out of this, sorry, it’s part of his game. Dessers has had lots of managers, good managers, and none of them could fix this.
Previous season with Feyenoord? Not great either, 14th worst in Holland with 15. Worst was 28.
Dessers will always be high in this area, but with 23 goals and assists in 43 this season, his numbers are just about justifying the negatives in his game.
Furthermore, this is what the manager has to work with till summer.
There’s not really much point complaining about it.