Cyriel Dessers continues flying start and welcomes Hamza Igamane competition

Cyriel Dessers continued his impressive scoring form against Dundee on Saturday then declared himself “happy” to have competition from new signing Hamza Igamane.

Dessers netted after 18 minutes in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final tie and after skipper James Tavernier scored a second from the spot five minutes into the second half, Dessers pounced again with a fine finish to make it 3-0 which took his tally to seven in the last eight appearances.

The Light Blues forward was immediately replaced by 21-year-old Moroccan striker Igamane, who made his third appearance off the bench since signing from AS FAR in the summer and has already caught the imagination of the fans.

Noting that fellow striker Danilo is making his way back from a knee injury, Nigeria international Dessers is also positive about Igamane’s addition to Philippe Clement’s squad, saying: “I’m happy with that, actually.

“I think at a big club like Rangers, there will always be competition. I think that’s good because we play 65 games in the season, probably I will not play 90 minutes in 65 games.

“So I think it’s really good that Hamza and Dani are here and I’m sure we will need them, and that they will be ready at that moment.

“You can see Hamza has something. I can see it as well in training, he has something, and I’m happy with that, and I’m supporting him and he’s supporting me.

“We’re helping each other because we know in a long season, like you have at Rangers, and you want to do well in the two cups, in the league, in Europe, you cannot do it alone as a striker.

“We will need all of our strikers this season and hopefully we can score a lot of goals, all of us.”

Dessers felt “really good” to be back at Ibrox again after a highly-publicised absence.

The Light Blues had to play their home games at Hampden Park while delayed refurbishment took place on the Copland Stand, which was still not completely open for the visit of the Taysiders.

The former Cremonese, Genk and Utrecht striker is already well on his way to matching the 22 goals he scored for Rangers last season.

He said: “Yeah, it’s decent form. I’m happy with those stats. A few assists as well.

“I’m in a good moment right now, good momentum. But I just want to keep going.

“Obviously, you want more than this, but I’m happy. It’s good to start a season and I want to keep building on this.

“No, I don’t really have a (goals) target. My target is trophies. But it would be nice to score more than last season.

“A start like this helps, but obviously you need to stay fit so you keep playing games, and then then hopefully the goals will follow if I do my job for the team.”

Rangers begin their Europa League campaign with an away tie against Malmo on Thursday and Dessers is “very excited” about the trip to Sweden.

He said: “I think we have a very beautiful but very difficult draw.

“Malmo away is not an easy start, but these are the games you want to play when you play in Europe.

“Saturday can give us some confidence, a boost, and hopefully we can have a good performance there as well and hopefully win.”