The stunning Cyriel Dessers season that shows Rangers what they're getting as striker vows he's more than 'Mr 90+2'

Michael Beale may have been kept waiting a little bit longer than he would have wanted to get Cyriel Dessers in the doors of Auchenhowie.

But then again, Dessers has made a habit of leaving the best till last in a career which, not all that long ago, seemed destined to take him to the top of the European game. During a season long loan deal with Feyenoord, in 2021/22, the Belgian born striker ended the inaugural Conference League campaign as the top scorer in the entire competition - with a ten goal haul which pipped Roma’s talisman Tammy Abraham by one.

And, during that blistering campaign, he even earned himself the nickname of Mr 90+2 because he came off the bench to bag three winning goals in the space of a week, all in the same minute of injury time. Some Feyenoord fans even got the name and number printed on the back of their replica shirts as Dessers quickly secured cult hero status at De Kuip.

He lapped the adulation up. For a while. But Dessers soon tired of its quirkiness. Rather, he considers himself to be a very serious striker. And that’s exactly what Beale will be welcoming inside the building this week when Dessers finally arrives in Glasgow to undergo a medical and then put pen to paper on what’s understood to be a four year contract for a fee of around £4m.

As Dessers said himself: “Cult footballers for me are players who were actually not that good but played their way into the hearts of the fans. In the beginning, it was funny. I often filled in as a substitute and scored a couple of times in the 92nd minute. So I understand it. But I think by now I have shown more than that. If you can shoot a team like Feyenoord to the final of a European Cup, the ‘cult’ thing is a bit off.”

And yet, so popular did