Defiant Cyriel Dessers declares Rangers CAN compete with European giants despite 'hardest' draw

The Lyon drubbing at Ibrox has raised concerns about the Light Blues' Europa League campaign

Cyriel Dessers believes Rangers CAN compete with Europe’s big boys despite their 4-1 mauling off Lyon.

But the Ibrox striker says they’ll have to up their game quickly because the likes of Spurs and Manchester United will be even BETTER than the French side. Philippe Clement ’s men were taught a harsh lesson by Lyon on Thursday night as they suffered a heavy Euro defeat at home. Dessers accepts there’s a financial gulf between the Ligue 1 outfit and Rangers.

But after competing against the likes of Benfica and Real Betis in the competition a year ago - the 29-year-old insists they should still be capable of punching above their weight. And if they don’t, he says they’ll find it even tougher against the Premier League superstars they’re due to face later in the group stage. Dessers said: “I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect Rangers to beat teams like Lyon.

“If you look at the first 20 minutes the other night, we showed we can put our foot next to teams like that. We also showed it last season against Benfica and Betis. So it’s not unrealistic.

“But you have to take into account that they have some exceptional players. They spent around £100million in the summer so that’s part of the difference they showed on Thursday.

“But if you look at our draw in the Europa League, we have one of the hardest. We’ll be up against more teams with the quality of Lyon.

“Olympiacos and Nice are close to their level. Tottenham and Manchester United are even above it. So we’ll need to be at the top of our game to get points.

“But this is what we worked the whole of last season for. That’s what you want. Games like this against good opponents. Obviously, we want more than what we got on Thursday but hopefully we can do it next time.”

Dessers accepts that it’s the beginning of a new cycle at Rangers with gaffer Clement trying to integrate new, younger players. They return to league duty tonight against St Johnstone as they try to claw back Celtic and Aberdeen at the top of the Premiership table.

Dessers knows domestic success is vital for Gers this term - but says it’s impossible to prioritise it over Europe. He said: “Obviously, the league is huge for us, you can’t deny that.

“But we’re now playing on four levels and it’s not like we can go into European games with the league in our heads. We want to qualify for the next round of the Europa League. We want to win the semi-final of the League Cup too. At a club like Rangers, you have to go hard. We cannot just pick our games.”

Story SavedYou can find this story in  My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.