THERE was as much excitement about the performance of new Rangers striker Hamza Igamane in the stands at Ibrox last night as there was delight at the double Cyriel Dessers scored in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final win over Dundee.
The Moroccan Under-23 internationalist, a £1.5 capture from AS FAR in his homeland back in July, had shown flashes of what he is capable of when he came on against Dundee United in the William Hill Premiership match at Tannadice last Sunday.
The physical and direct 21-year-old followed that up with another impressive individual showing in the 3-0 victory in Govan.
He managed three attempts on goal during his brief time on the park and forced two fine saves from the visitors’ goalkeeper Trevor Carson.
It is still early days for the African forward. He has much work to do to justify his leftfield signing. However, the early signs are certainly encouraging.
Dessers, who was denied a hat-trick when Carson tipped his acrobatic shot over the crossbar, is every bit as enthused as the Rangers fans about Igamane’s obvious potential despite the challenge he now faces from the new recruit for a place in the starting line-up.
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"I'm happy with that, actually,” he said. "I think at a big club like Rangers there will always be competition. I think that's good, because we play 65 games in the season. Probably I will not play 65 games, all 90 minutes!
“So I think it's really good that Hamza and Dani [Danilo] are here. I'm sure we will need them, and that they will be ready at that moment. You can see Hamza, he has something. I can see it as well in training. When he comes in, he has something and I'm happy with that. I'm supporting him, he's supporting me.
"We're helping each other because we know that in a long season like you have at Rangers, you want to do well in the two cups, in the league and in Europe. You cannot do it alone as a striker. We will need all of our strikers this season, and hopefully we can score a lot of goals, all of us."
Dessers is certainly doing that at the moment. His brace against Dundee took his tally for the 2024/25 campaign to seven and he will, if fit and available for selection, be given the nod by his manager Philippe Clement to start in the opening Europa League league phase match against Malmo in Sweden on Thursday night.
"A start like this helps, but obviously you need to stay fit, so you keep playing games. And then hopefully the goals will follow if I do my job for the team. I want to keep building on this.
"I don't really have a target. My target is trophies. But, yeah, it would be nice to score more than last season [the Nigerian internationalist was on target 22 times in all competitions during his debut campaign in Scotland].”
Dessers, who has frustrated as much as delighted Rangers supporters since being arriving from Cremonese in Italy in a £4.5m transfer last year, is confident being back at Ibrox will help him and his team mates to perform at their best.
The upper tier of the Copland Stand remained closed last night and the crowd was only 33,665 for a cup tie which was not on season books. But being in their spiritual home once again after four matches at Hampden appeared to be very much to the hosts’ liking.
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"It felt really good,” said Dessers. “Just the small things like arriving at the parking lot and going through the fans. Seeing the fans before the game, it's always a good feeling. We knew Dundee are a tricky team. But to win score a couple of goals and keep a clean sheet was a good night.
"Maybe it could be [the catalyst to kick start Rangers’ season]. Obviously, it sounds like a cliche, but we're just looking game to game because we have so many games. But, yeah, it's just a nice feeling to be back. We wanted to give something to the fans as well on the first night back. We'll take the positives out of it."
One of those positives was the display of Nedim Bajrami. The winger, who was brought in from Sassuolo in Italy for £3.4m in the final week of the transfer window, was involved in the build-up to Dessers’ first goal and supplied the assist for his second.
"I played against him in Italy so I know his qualities already,” said the striker. "I've seen his qualities at the highest level in the Serie A. I saw that already. He's a very, very good player. "I was happy when he signed. He's shown things in training and he showed things against Dundee that make me happy as a striker. He's a player that is looking for a striker, trying to provide, trying to find a good connection. So we can help each other with runs or with passes.
"I think this is the first time we play together, we started together in a game, and I think you can see the connection. But not only with him, with Vaclav [Cerny] on the other side and with Tom [Lawrence] in midfield. I think I have a good connection with all of these guys. It's only the beginning of the season, but I think that's surely a start to build on."
It will be difficult for Rangers, who very much remain a work in progress despite their back-to-back wins over Dundee United and Dundee, to make it a hat-trick of victories against Malmo away this week. But Dessers is looking forward to trying.
"Very excited,” he said. "I think we have a very beautiful, but very difficult draw. Malmo away is not an easy start, but these are the games you want to play when you're playing in Europe. I think the cup win, can give us some confidence, a boost. Hopefully we can have a good performance there as well and hopefully we can win."
