When even Chris Sutton is singing your praises as a Rangers player, you known you’re on the right track.
But while Cyriel Dessers has made some serious progress since Philippe Clement replaced Mick Beale in the Ibrox dugout, the striker’s misfiring performance during Saturday’s calamitous 3-2 defeat at Ross County provided far more questions than answers.
OK, Dessers may no longer be the ‘dud’ he appeared to be at the start of the season – to quote Sutton – but he’s certainly not deadly either. The £4.5 million summer signing from Cremonese could and maybe should have had a hat-trick as Rangers’ title hopes suffered a potentially decisive blow at Dingwall.
Now, much has been made of Rangers’ failure to sign a striker in the January window – Clement wanted one but Fabio Silva was the closest he got – and it’s tempting to wonder how differently things would have turned out for the Glasgow giants if they had, say, Lawrence Shankland leading the line instead of Dessers this weekend.
Did Rangers miss a trick not signing Lawrence Shankland
The Scotland international scored one and set up two more as Hearts defeated Livingston 4-2 some 24 hours earlier. Shankland now has 28 goals this season, compared to Dessers’ 17.
And David Martindale, the Livi boss who witnessedShankland’s talents at close quarters at Tynecastle, is in no doubt that the Hearts skipper would have been a roaring success on the blue side of Glasgow.
“Personally, I think he would be unbelievable for them,” Martindale says, via the Daily Record. “But then we have an in-depth knowledge of Scottish football while some of the sporting directors have in-depth knowledge of other countries.”
Martindale wonders if Rangers – rather than bringing in Dessers, Danilo and Sam Lammers, three players who made their name in the Netherlands – would have been better served looking closer to home for new additions.
The success of Celtic under Ange Postecoglou – Japanese imports Reo Hatate and Kyogo Furuhashi both scoring in the 3-0 thrashing of St Mirren – is something their cross-city rivals are yet to replicate.
“Look at Ange Postecoglou and the number of players he brought here from the J League because he’d worked in that market. Hearts have recently done well by bringing in boys from Australia because they know what works and what doesn’t over there,” Martindale adds.
“I think Shankland would get 30 goals a season for Celtic or Rangers but it’s probably down to the style of football they want to play. First and foremost, the manager has got to want him and they may be looking at different things. Football is changing.”
Hearts star will not sign a new contract
Clement will be praying that the inconsistent Dessers can rediscover his purple patch again before the title moves out of reach. Rangers have already lost Danilo for the season, while the injury-prone Kemar Roofe has only scored twice in the Scottish Premiership since the start of 2022/23.
Shankland is likely to be available in the summer, at least, and potentially at a discounted fee too. Hearts chairman Ann Budge has already confirmed that the former Dundee United talisman – out of contract next summer – is not rushing to sign an extension.
“It’s not definitely close. Not at all,” Budge tells PLZ Soccer. “He’s still got 18 months left on his contract, there or thereabouts, so a large part of it is up to Lawrence. He’s a young man and is looking at what’s right for his career.
“(Shankland) has been fantastic for us. And I’d like to think we’ve been pretty good for him as well. So we’re still talking and we’d love him to stay.
“But he’s a man in demand, as we know. And I think that’s only going to increase. It will be his decision, at the end of the day.”
