Dessers rescues Rangers, confident of Europa League knockout phase ticket

Cyriel Dessers scored on 64 minutes to rescue a point for Rangers in their Europa League match day four tie at Greek side, Olympiacos, on Thursday evening and the Nigerian hailed his side for showing a great performance.

Olympiacos opened scoring 11 minutes into the second half through Ayoub El Kaabi but the visitors from Scotland drew level eight minutes later when Dessers fired in the equalizer for his ninth goal of the season in 19 appearances across all competitions.

It was his first in four Europa League games this season and two overall in 14 appearances.

The Nigerian acknowledged they faced a very tough team away from home but believes they can clinch a knockout phase ticket albeit they have teams like Tottenham and Man United still to play.

‘Today was a very tough game. We knew that Olympiacos are very good, and they won the Conference League last season. We showed a good performance,’ said the Nigerian who revealed shock their host scored first.

‘It was a weird feeling after their goal, because we had some chances (earlier) while they hadn’t. Their goal was unbelievable, a very good finish by El Kaabi.

‘But we are a team that never gives up. We showed that already a few times this season and today was the same. We kept going, kept being aggressive, trying to press and, out of this press, we scored a nice goal.’

Dessers is confident Rangers can go all the way in the group phase.

‘We hope to qualify from the league phase. We have some big teams coming up as rivals, with Nice, Tottenham and Manchester United. I believe that in these three games it will be hard to take points, but I believe we can. European games are always special and I think we can make it difficult for every team’.