Neil McCann believes Cyriel Dessers may have done enough to stay at Rangers this month after his goal in the 3-0 win over Hibernian.
The Nigerian came on as a substitute for Fabio Silva and scored with his first touch with a fine finish late on to make it 11 goals for the campaign, but speculation remains as to whether he could be moved on before the deadline.
But speaking live on BBC Sportscene (24 January, 15mins) while reacting to his goal, McCann speculated that with Danilo and Abdallah Sima out for most of the rest of the season through injury he could be needed at Ibrox and he’s doing his case to stick around no harm by scoring regularly.
“Listen he’s a player there’s a lot of speculation about,” he said. “Will he stay, will he leave? But 11 goals, Sima is now injured. He’s going to be out for a considerable amount of time. Danilo is the same.
“So can they let him go? Have they got another striker lined up if he does go? But all he can do that boy is when he gets on the pitch, whether starting or coming on as a sub is try to find the back of the net and he’s done it again tonight.”
Sensible
There isn’t much time remaining in the transfer window and Rangers clearly don’t have a striker option lined up otherwise they would surely have pulled the trigger by now.
Sam Lammers was allowed to leave as he has no future under Philippe Clement and Fabio Silva came in as a direct replacement meaning the team wasn’t left short on numbers.
And while Dessers really struggled early on to hit the ground running, he has consistently been able to score goals in games and it feels as though Clement has a better understanding of how to use him than Michael Beale did.
If he can keep making an impact on the scoresheet while the rest of the team are performing well around him then it doesn’t make sense to try and move him on so quickly when funds clearly aren’t quite there.
Unless there is a straightforward deal to do then there are other areas of the squad that need addressing more urgently, and Dessers can do a job somewhat until the end of the season when they can then re-evaluate.