His tally may be good, but is Dessers good enough to lead line for Rangers?

Everyone knows the thrust of the famous Ebbe Skovdahl quote about statistics, with the longevity of the saying perhaps down to both the quirkiness of the wording and the kernel of truth that is contained within it.

Take Cyriel Dessers, for example. On paper, with 19 goals now to his name for the season, you could certainly argue that his debut campaign for Rangers has been a success.

And yet, not only does his name remain something of a punchline among Scottish football fans – harshly, perhaps – but there is a nagging feeling that his tally doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

Kris Boyd knows all too well the expectation that comes with leading the line for Rangers, and how unforgiving an environment that can be. So, he has sympathy with Dessers as he tries to live up to the standards that are demanded of him.

But still. Just as with so many Rangers supporters, Boyd is struggling to shake nagging doubts about Dessers and his suitability to lead the line for the Ibrox club. He may have been good, but has he been good enough?

Boyd still can’t make up his mind, with the number of chances that Dessers misses not exactly negating the ones he has stuck away, but at least tarnishing his tally. And Boyd believes that his profligacy – such as with his glaring miss in the defeat to Ross County – may have proved potentially fatal to Rangers’ hopes of winning the Premiership title.

“It’s a difficult one, because in a way, you can say he’s scoring goals,” Boyd said.

“But then every time you leave a match, every time you pick up a paper or tune into a radio station, all the talk is about the chances he’s missed. We’re all guilty of it.

“He’s scored two goals that has taken Rangers to a cup final, he’s scored important goals already. But I’m going to contradict myself now, because you just feel he should have had more.

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“You go back to the Ross County game and had his chance up there gone in, Rangers would probably have gone won that game. He had another opportunity at Hampden to help himself to a hat-trick.

“I get that you can’t score every opportunity, but these are glaring misses we’re talking about. Big misses.

“I don’t look at Dessers and view him as an out-and-out finisher. But he does have his strengths. He’s grown on me from when he first came in.

“People say it takes time to settle at the Old Firm - but you don’t get time, especially when you’re trying to derail Celtic at the top of the table.

“It’s not as if it’s fazed him missing opportunities. There’s a lot to like about Dessers, but you have to say, he could have had more.

“Listen, Rangers and Celtic strikers should be scoring 20-25 goals a season with the chances they get. There is a lot to like about Dessers’ game. He gives 100 percent effort. I wasn’t the best in that lone striker role so I can’t criticise that. People say he can be doing better with this and better with that, but he does put in a shift for the team.

“But again, you go back to - and no-one will change my opinion - the most important thing if you’re wearing that Rangers No9 jersey is scoring goals.

“The numbers are decent, but he should have a lot more. You could point to anybody’s season and say that – (Erling) Haaland last year got fifty-odd goals and people will say he could’ve had seventy. The only two you can’t really criticise for that are (Cristiano) Ronaldo and (Lionel) Messi and we’re nowhere near that.

“Everybody’s going to miss opportunities, but you’ve got to be prepared to miss them, not let it faze you, keep going back, and take the next one.

“But it just seems to be that when you don’t expect him to score, he does, and when you do expect him to score, he doesn’t.”

What is it then that he lacks, in Boyd’s educated opinion?

“It’s as if he’s HOPING to score goals - rather than believing it,” he said.

“A proper striker will get frustrated at missing chances, but they keep going back. Cyriel Dessers goes back, but I don’t see that frustration in his game. It’s like he’s thinking, ‘It’s OK, it’s just another chance’.”

Might his well-taken Hampden double though against Hearts prove to be something of a turning point, with Dessers taking confidence from the way he coolly despatched the first of his two goals in particular?

As is a familiar feeling when discussing Dessers, it is difficult to tell. Maybe, says Boyd, but then again, maybe not.

“I don’t see anything changing,” he said.

“He might score a goal or two at the weekend but miss three or four chances. That wouldn’t surprise me. That’s what you’ve got.

“Without being disrespectful to him, that’s why he is where he is.

“It used to be that strikers were obsessed by goals and that was all that matters. I don’t see that that fazes a lot of strikers now, they’re more focused on doing what Cyriel Dessers does - occupying centre-backs and being a nuisance, doing his best for the team.

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“I don’t see that obsession for scoring goals the way strikers of the past were, but I don’t see that in world football anymore because the game’s changed.

“Dessers has been battered from pillar to post but he’s still got more goals than Kyogo (Furuhashi), I think, yet he gets hailed as a hero. But the flipside is that Kyogo’s done it in big games.

“It can’t all be that bad, but because of the number of chances that are created, the number of chances Rangers do create, you’d expect it to be more.

“Nineteen goals is a decent return, but going back to it, what could it have been?”

Kris Boyd was speaking at The Kris Boyd Charity Golf Day Trump Turnberry. Kris has been raising awareness of Mental Health and funds to help people in need for seven years.