Over the course of a season, Rangers star asset has gone from Alfredo Morelos to Joe Aribo to Calvin Bassey, the latter’s rise to prominence coming on the highest of stages in front of the biggest audience, not a bad place to make your mark.
When Nathan Patterson was sold for a fee that could rise to £16million it sent out a message to clubs – particularly in England – that if they want to sign our best talent, they will have to pay for it, a bench mark has been set.
In fairness, we have to, grudgingly, appreciate what our noises neighbours have done in terms of transfer business, Kieran Tierney’s record sale allowing us to piggy back in terms of setting our own valuations, a starting price for Bassey of £25m would have been unthinkable even last season when he first broke into the Rangers team.
Speaking to Football Insider, former Gers record transfer holder, Alan Hutton, believes that Bassey is worth every penny, should a Premier League side come calling:
“I could see Villa paying it.
“Obviously, the manager, Steven Gerrard, knows him inside out and bought him to Rangers.
“There’s a lot of media speculation about Calvin Bassey and a Villa transfer because of the manager. When you’re playing at a level that he’s playing at, so young, at such a high level, he’s got a lot more to give. He’s only going to get better.
“I think that’s probably a fair price if I’m totally honest. I know people keep bringing up the Kieran Tierney situation and what he went for. Calvin Bassey is more than capable of doing exactly the same thing.”
Hutton is right, Bassey is miles ahead of Patterson in terms of development. Physically he is a machine but his positional awareness, reading of the game, crossing and heading are so much better than they were last season and they are improving all the time as seen by his performance for Nigeria earlier this week – he’s gone from a back-up to key player for both club and country.
Gerrard will know fine well what he would be getting with Bassey and what he would have to pay for a similar player in England, £25m is a bargain and Bassey would be worth every penny.