Cyriel Dessers: Rangers can achieve ‘something special’ in Europa League

Cyriel Dessers believes Rangers can come up with “something special” in the Europa League after reaching the last 16 as a top-eight team.

The Light Blues bypassed the play-offs with a 2-1 in over Union Saint-Gilloise at Ibrox last month and, amid the expanded eight-game group phase which yielded 14 points, there was an encouraging draw at home to Tottenham and unlucky defeat away to Manchester United.

Rangers will face one of FC Twente, Bodo/Glint, Fenerbahce or Anderlecht next month.

Nigeria striker Dessers, who has scored 18 goals this season, including a stunning equaliser at Old Trafford, says he is “very happy” to still be at Ibrox after speculation he could move on in the transfer window.

And he is confident Rangers can progress further in Europe.

“We’re still competing in three competitions and I think the confidence that we got from the European games is huge, with getting to the top eight,” said Dessers, who helped Feyenoord reach the Conference League final in 2022, a week after Rangers lost to Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League final in Seville.

“So I think something special there is possible for the Europa League.

“We just need to keep going. You never know what happens and just keep looking at it game by game.

“Against some very good teams, we showed that we can compete with them and I think maybe that football in the Europa League sometimes fits us a little bit better even.

“But also we showed it last season as well that we can compete with teams like Benfica.

“Also if you see we made it to the top eight and a lot of the teams that we played against are in the top eight as well.

“That just shows that we had the most difficult programme of everybody in the Europa League and we still got into the top eight.

“That’s a massive achievement and all credit to the group.

“So that gives us confidence and we know from here on in the knockout phase there are no easy games anymore.

“That’s also what I see when we went to the final with Feyenoord.

“But you also know that the more you progress the more it becomes 50-50 in these games.

“Even if you play against very big clubs everything is possible in a quarter-final or a semi-final.”