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Cyriel Dessers blasts Celtic with a title warning following Dortmund hammering, as Rangers striker declares the best is still to come
The Nigerian star is well aware that nothing is won or lost in the first weeks of the season.
Cyriel Dessers has reminded Rangers’ critics that the league “is not lost or won” in the first month, claiming that their best is still to come.
The Ibrox striker believes Philippe Clement’s side has made progress since their 3-0 defeat at Celtic Park four weeks ago, and that they have learnt from the experience.
Rangers are third, trailing Glasgow rivals Celtic and Aberdeen by five points after only six games. As a result, Clement and his players have been under growing criticism. However, a four-game winning streak without conceding a goal has boosted Dessers and his teammates’ confidence ahead of Thursday night’s Europa League match against French giants Lyon.
He said: “It’s good for me and I think for a few more experienced players. I don’t think it’s easy, but you have to do it. You have no choice. If you want to make a good season, you need to block out it and stay focused.
“The league is not lost or won in August. In the next months, we will need to keep winning games to be as close as possible. Also before the Celtic game, I think we had some really good performances. And then obviously, you want that one game to go different. But also, you cannot let one result distract you.
“Like I said, we are growing. The best is yet to come for us. And I think everybody can see that. We just have to stay focused on our own.”
Clement sat his players down for a no-holds-barred analysis of the September 1 derby defeat. Since then, they’ve won four games and kept four clean sheets.
And Dessers remarked, “You evaluate the game, you see what we did wrong and what we did right. You try to learn from it and work on it again. The league is a little different since so many clubs play differently against us, but I believe these European games are more similar to the Old Firm games.
“You can see that we’ve made progress since the end of August, and we need to keep developing. Lyon will be a nice challenge for us.”