By Kris Boyd’s own admission, ‘there is a lot to like’ about a man who has gone some way to shushing his critics during an admittedly hit-and-miss first season in Scottish football.
But, while Rangers‘ £4.5 million summer signing has improved steadily as the campaign has gone on, the abiding memory – for some – will be that moment in December’s Old Firm derby defeat at Celtic Park.
One on one with home goalkeeper Joe Hart,Cyriel Dessers waited an age to get his shot away. In the end, he never would, allowing Alistair Johnston to make up the yards and win the ball back just as the Nigeria international finally looked set to pull the trigger.
For all the progress Dessers has made – taking his tally to an impressive 19 with a brace against Hearts at Hampden Park – this is the concern Boyd has about the well-travelled 29-year-old. Would you really be surprised if Dessers had another of those days during the first Scottish Cup final clash between Rangers and Celtic in over two decades, snatching at chances as Kyogo Furuhashi – the Gers’ own Parkhead paralasis demon – makes him pay at the other end?
Rangers face Celtic in Scottish Cup final
“The be-all and end-all for a striker is scoring goals. That’s particularly the case at Rangers and Celtic,” Botd, who scored over 100 times in just five years at Ibrox, tells Sky Sports.
“Dessers has 19 goals, so he’s doing that. 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 that he’s missed.
“You go back to the Ross County game (last week’s 3-2 defeat). Had his chance up there gone in, Rangers would probably have gone on and won that game. He had another opportunity at Hampden on Sunday to score a hat-trick.
“I get you can’t score every opportunity. But these are glaring misses that we’re talking about.”
Shortly after Dessers let Celtic off the hook on the final outing of 2023, Kyogo then showed him how it’s done with a fierce strike just after the interval. And Boyd worries that, for all of Dessers’ effort and endeavour, the ruthlessness of the man in green could be the difference between the two old rivals in next month’s Hampden final.
Can Cyriel Dessers outgun Kyogo Furuhashi?
“When you’re in a team that creates the number of chances Rangers and Celtic do, you expect more,” Boyd adds. “Dessers has been battered from pillar to post but he’s still got more goals than Kyogo, yet he gets hailed as a hero.
“The flip side is that Kyogo’s done it in big games. Dessers has got the two goals that have taken Rangers to a cup final, so he’s scored important goals. But you just feel he should have had more and you’d expect it to be more.
“I think 19 goals is a decent return, but what could it have been? I don’t see anything changing with him. He might score a goal or two for Rangers this weekend and miss three or four chances. That wouldn’t surprise me.
“Rangers and Celtic strikers should be scoring 20-25 goals a season with the chances they get.”
Rangers, who are still in with a very realistic shout of a domestic treble, will face Celtic twice before the season ends. Philippe Clement’s side travel across Glasgow on March 11 and will then meet at the national stadium a fortnight later.
