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Red hot and the red card – Aribo and Bassey in the spotlight

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On the same day that Rangers Saturdays returned, two former Ibrox heroes were very much in the spotlight at their new clubs.

Joe Aribo lit up St Mary’s with a stunning solo effort in their 1-2 defeat against 2021 Europa League winners Villarreal meanwhile Calvin Bassey had a debut to forget in Amsterdam when he received a red card, just miutes after coming onto the pitch against PSV Eindhoven in the Johan Cruyff Shield – the Dutch curtain raiser between the previous season’s league championship and cup winners.

PSV prevailed 5-3 with the late clincher coming from Xavi Simons.

Action

The Joe Aribo goal has gone viral on social media and no wonder.

With shades of his mazy run against Braga at Ibrox, the maverick attacker truly announced his arrival for the Saints running almost the length of the pitch before cooly dispatching the ball past the keeper into the far corner of the net. It was a ridiculously good goal, but check it out for yourself, or at least one more time.

For Rangers most expensive selling player, Calvin Bassey, he was introduced against PSV with the score at 2-2 but just about 15 minutes and three goals later he was given his marching orders.

Ajax pushed for an equaliser but it was the team from Eindhoven who secured the win and the trophy.

Bassey will be disappointed with his late lunge, a dangerous tackle, which resulted in a red car after a lengthy VAR review and now he faces more scrutiny in the coming weeks because of this incident but the Nigeria international has to let his football do the talking. He is more than good enough to make an impact in the Netherlands.

Bassey can and will recover.

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