Sam Lammers has revealed he didn't have to leave Rangers to return to the Eredivisie and it was his decision to go out on loan.

The Dutch flop has returned to his homeland to join Utrecht on loan after a difficult six months at Rangers, who splashed out £3.5 million to land the former Atalanta striker.

Utrecht doesn't have an option to buy the 26-year-old former PSV Eindhoven forward and Lammers has insisted he could have stayed and fought for his place under Philippe Clement.

He said: "I really didn't necessarily have to leave Rangers, a wonderful club of course.

"But when you notice in conversations how much technical director Jordy Zuidam and the manager Ron Jans wanted to bring me to Utrecht, it made me think.

"That was very, very important to me and I'm really so happy to be here.

"At Rangers, the question was whether I would feature much in the second half of the season. Hence my choice for Utrecht, a club that has always appealed to me.

"I believe that with this team, which has many good players, we will have a great second half of the season.

"I've been given the No.9 jersey and that's the striker's number isn't it?

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"Scoring goals is something magical. As a child, I was obsessed with Zinedine Zidane and Dennis Bergkamp, who were more No.10s  than pure strikers. I could watch them endlessly on the DVDs I had of them.

"But my fascination was scoring. And it still is that way. Although I can also perform in other roles, I really feel like a No.9.

"I am really looking forward to my adventure at Utrecht. I think the only way is up for the club and I would like to contribute to that. I expect a lot from myself.”