'We needed...' - Rangers hitman breaks silence on fresh transfer rumour and makes Ibrox manager confession

The Nigerian striker was in international action earlier this week, scoring the opening goal in his side’s 2-1 win over West African rivals Ghana in the semi-final of the Unity Cup at Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium, almost two years on from his last appearance for the Super Eagles.

The Scottish Premiership's top scorer in 2024/25, Dessers won the Golden Boot award after scoring 18 league goals at Ibrox last season, and hopes his exploits will keep him in the plans of Nigeria head coach Éric Chelle after his successful return to the international fold.

"I don’t make the selections,” smiled Dessers. “There’s a lot of competition among the strikers — we have some very good players. All I can do is focus on performing well for my club and scoring goals. Whenever I’m called up, I try to show what I can do. I think I did that yesterday, and I hope to be involved in the next game as well."

The 30-year-old striker is now set to jet off on his summer holidays after a toiling season at Rangers, however, with the club set for an impending takeover from the Andrew Cavenagh-led consortium involving 49ers Enterprises, Dessers’ future remains one of contention, with Olympiacos and AEK Athens both credited with an interest in the striker.

"I still have two years left on my contract with Rangers,” insisted Dessers. “It’s a fantastic club, and I’m happy there. When you score that number of goals, it’s normal for other teams to show interest. I’ve seen the links with Olympiacos, but I don’t know anything specific about that. These kinds of rumours are normal, but for now, I’m staying focused and looking forward to enjoying my holiday in a few weeks.”

Eliminated early in the Scottish Cup, Rangers lost the Premier Sports Cup final to Celtic on penalties, and exited the Europa League at the quarter-final stage against Athletic Bilbao, while they ended the campaign 17 points behind Celtic at the top of the Scottish Premiership.

While his own season was viewed as a big positive for the Nigerian, he concedes that the Glasgow giants failure to win a trophy took the shine off the season, as he opened up on the sacking of Philippe Clement, and interim head coach Barry Ferguson and his short stint in charge at Ibrox.

"From a team perspective, at Rangers, we needed to win a big trophy,” Dessers told SportsBoom. “Unfortunately, we didn’t achieve that last season. That was disappointing. But on a personal level, I scored 30 goals, and I can be proud of that. Phillipe Clement is a good coach. We started the season with him, and later Barry Ferguson came in as caretaker manager. It’s never easy to take over a team in the middle of a challenging season, but Barry worked hard to turn things around and get everyone on the same page."

"We had some positive moments — especially in the Europa League, where we won two good games against Fenerbahce, a very strong team coached by Jose Mourinho. So there were definitely things to be grateful for."