UEFA Champions League: Cyril Dessers opens goal account for Rangers against Servette

By Wale Mustapha

Nigerian striker, Cyril Dessers choose the best time to register his first goal for Glasgow Rangers on Wednesday helping them to 2-1 UEFA Champions League third round first leg win over Servette at Ibrox.

The Super Eagles’ forward was also handed his first competitive bow since he joined from Cremonese in the summer.

It took only five minutes for Michael Beale’s side to draw first blood in the contest, after David Douline brought down Todd Cantwell inside the box.

James Tavernier smashed in the resulting penalty to further ignite the fervent atmosphere inside Ibrox.

That lead was doubled with only quarter of an hour played, as Cyriel Dessers coolly guided in Borna Barišić’s pinpoint cross over the line to score his first Rangers goal.

Dessers almost turned villain as he was picked by VAR to have handled the ball in the box given Servette a believe of a comeback.

Ivory Coast forward Chris Bedia smashed home the subsequent spot-kick and halved the deficit before half time.

The visitors could only play a catch up for most parts of second half while Rangers failed to stretch the lead leaving the second leg tie in the balance.

The win was a hard fought one for the host as they made a first step towards erasing last year’s UCL demons and also a bounce back from opening day Scottish Premier League loss to Kilmarnock.

The Glasgow giants lost all six of their UCL group stage matches last term, but are still in contention to redeem that dismal record this season.