Rangers fans wanted him gone but is luck turning for £4.5m enigma who is antithesis of Ibrox legend?

Dessers is little more than 12 months into his Ibrox career and appears a humble man so might not expect to feature. This was certainly a view shared by most Rangers fans at about 8.55pm GMT on Tuesday night in Poland. With time not so much running out as having all but elapsed, Rangers were toiling to get back into the game against Dynamo Kyiv, their Champions League third qualifying round opponents.

Dessers had been up to his usual tricks again. That’s not to say he had been poor. He hadn’t. Or at least certainly no poorer than several of his teammates. But what had been worrying Rangers fans, not for the first time, was just how luckless he seemed to be.

All strikers need an element of fortune to do what they do. They need goals to go in off their backsides. They need shots destined for Row X to hit someone else’s backside and go in. They need to be, well, more like Ally McCoist.

Of course, it’s impossible to be exactly like Ally McCoist. It’s hard to imagine another Rangers player ever scoring 355 goals for Rangers at both domestic and European level, as McCoist did. He scored 54 goals in the League Cup alone. But what helped set McCoist apart was his luck at times. Of course, you have to make your own luck and you have to have the talent to make the most of it. McCoist had that in abundance. There will never be another like him. "Golden Bollocks" they called him in recognition of his seemingly charmed life.

Dessers, by contrast, appeared to be the anti-Ally McCoist. The harder he worked, the unluckier he got. Take that header against crossbar-then-post, for example, against Hearts on Saturday. So little seemed to fall for him and when it finally did, he was unable to take advantage.

On Tuesday night, for example, Dessers was in the right place at the right time when the ball fell for him after Tom Lawrence's early effort had been saved. Difficult chance though it was, Dessers could not make a decent contact and steer the ball past Georgiy Bushchan.

Then came the moment when one wondered if Dessers really was the antithesis of McCoist and was cursed. After a great ball from the left from substitute Jefte, the Nigerian internationalist seemed to do everything right as he directed a header downwards towards the 'keeper's far corner. GOAL! But no, Bushchan scrambled to his left and made a terrific save, tipping the ball past for a corner.

Many strikers might have allowed the head to go down. Can you imagine Alfredo Morelos' reaction? On his day, the Colombian striker was a superb player for Rangers. But Dessers' goals per games record is roughly equivalent to his predecessor, who hit 30 in his first full season at the club. Dessers scored 23 times.

He is now off the mark for this season. It's a goal that may yet help pay back the bulk of his £4.5million transfer fee from Cremonese, providing Rangers can complete the job on Tuesday at Hampden and land the £4million windfall for reaching the play off round. It’s also the kind of goal that Rangers could not expect the movement averse Morelos, for example, to score in the latter part of his time at Rangers.

Dessers played a part in the build-up, laying the ball off in his own half before picking himself back up to race into the six-yard box to meet Vaclav Cerny’s centre with what proved the last kick of the game.

It was one in the eye for those who didn’t want Dessers to kick another ball for Rangers and prayed mooted moves elsewhere this summer came off. It might also cool Lawrence Shankland-to-Rangers talk, although it would be timely if the Ibrox side can secure that extra £4 million in the second leg against the Ukrainians at Hampden next week. The transfer window shuts a fortnight later.

Whatever happens, Dessers has again suggested he has it within him to live up to the challenge of being a Rangers No 9. Even Kris Boyd has admitted he is “warming” to one of his striker successors at Ibrox. Perhaps the corner really has been turned. Perhaps fortune will more regularly start to favour someone who's bravely shouldered the brickbats.

And when that book comes out, he might not be on the cover along with McCoist et al. But Dessers may well yet deserve an entry, for fortitude alone.