Rangers boss rails against Cyriel Dessers 'perception' and hails impact sub after late Champions League heroics

Rangers manager Philippe Clement hailed the importance of Cyriel Dessers after his often-maligned striker threw his side a Champions League lifeline with a last gasp equaliser away to Dynamo Kyiv.

Dessers pounced from six yards to drill home a cross from substitute Vaclav Cerny in the 94th minute to rescue a 1-1 draw for Rangers in the third qualifying round first leg tie held at the Lublin Arena in Poland.

The Ukrainian side had led through a first half strike from Andriy Yarmolenko but Rangers were worthy of their injury-time equaliser that leaves the tie finely balanced ahead of the return leg at Hampden Park next Tuesday.

Dessers looked set to endure another frustrating night with the best Rangers chances falling his way only to be denied by excellent goalkeeping from Kyiv number one Georgiy Bushchan.

The Nigeria international finally got his reward with what proved the last kick of the game to the delight of his manager and the travelling Rangers supporters.

"He kept on believing and I'm happy for him that he scored the goal," Clement said.

"If you compare him with seven months ago he does much more things. He is really good for the team. People have a perception about him but I know there are no defenders anymore liking to play against him, and he is only growing."

Clement insisted that the outcome was a positive one for his undercooked Rangers side against a Kyiv outfit who had inflicted a 9-2 aggregate defeat on Partizan Belgrade in the previous round.

"We're in this rebuild so I think it's very positive in the circumstances to get the result we did," he stressed. "With the fitness of some players like Vaclav coming straight out of his holidays, he trained four times, Dujon [Sterling] coming out of injury, he trained one time with us, and James Tavernier who is just two weeks training now with the squad again.

"We have a lot of potential to still grow in the next weeks and months so in that way it was really good to get a result like that here. Now it's about getting all our fans behind us in Hampden Park to make the difference as the 12th player on the pitch with all the noise they can make to push my team forward to qualify."

Clement was also delighted with the contribution of summer signing Jefte, the Brazilian full-back, who made his competitive debut on the left wing after replacing Scott Wright at half-time.

"He is still young, only 20, he doesn't speak the language too much but he's adapted really fast," Clement said. "He is a high potential player of the future. We had to get several players in for the future of the club and he's showing already really good things and has a lot of potential to grow and become better. But he played a good second half and was important with his crosses and his defensive work also."

Rangers will now look to complete the job at Hampden next week in what will be there second home match at the national stadium after the weekend league match against Motherwell due to the delayed stadium works at Ibrox.