Calvin Bassey has bullied his way to the front of the queue in the battle to be named Rangers starting left-back and few fans of the Light Blues would argue against his promotion ahead of Borna Barisic on recent form.
Having arrived from Leicester City for a nominal development fee, the 22-year old has grown into the jersey, there is still the odd mistake but it has to be remembered that he had never played a minute of senior football before coming to the club.
Speaking to Football Insider, Alan Hutton knows all to well what it takes to be a successful full-back for Rangers and experienced more than a few groans from the Ibrox crowd himself and, in the light of recent speculation linking Bassey to West Ham United, the former Ger reckons we could make a tidy profit if he moves on:
“He’s certainly progressing well.
“He was very raw when he first turned up at Rangers. I think he’s got that aggression in his game and he’s developing nicely.
“He’s shown that he can play in a few positions as well.
“There’s no doubt, for me, of his defensive qualities. He’s strong, his one-v-one defending is brilliant, he’s difficult to get past.
“It’s just the final third he needs to improve, but he’s made strides there too – it looks like he’s been watching James Tavernier at times.
“You can see that he ticks a lot of boxes as a young player who could potentially make that jump to the Premier League.
“West Ham would have to pay millions. He’s got the potential to develop into a top player.”
Hutton is right, Bassey – with just 44 games for the club – has all the attributes needed to be a top player in terms of his ability on the ball and his work rate, however, his delivery in the final third isn’t the only thing he needs to work on – concentration being one of them.
He is still very much at the stage of his career where he is learning from his mistakes, because of his inexperience he is making them in our first-team which is a rarity for a player that we have signed to go straight into that squad, normally a player will either come up through the ranks or have played senior football before they come to us but Bassey is an example of what we could be seeing a lot more of in the future.
The Premier League 2 or Under-23 league for England’s top flight is full of talented players who might not make it at the club they are with, it doesn’t mean they aren’t good enough to be a success somewhere else though and Bassey, as Hutton says, could well end up making us an awful lot of money.