Calvin Bassey has been labelled as the ‘bad buy of the year’ as he continues to struggle following his move to Ajax from Rangers in the summer.
The young defender swapped Ibrox for Ajax in a €23m deal in the summer, with the Dutch moving quickly to secure him from Rangers as a replacement for Lisandro Martinez.
They, like many others, had been impressed by Bassey’s performances for Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side in the Europa League last season when Rangers reached the final of the competition.
He’s struggled to replicate his form for Rangers in the Netherlands, though, with a series of disappointing performances since the beginning of the campaign.
That’s come as part of a wider issue at Ajax as they struggle to adapt this season following a summer in which they changed manager and lost several key players.
Like several of the players they signed to replace those players, Bassey has struggled to establish himself, and faced criticism on more than occasion as a result.
Hugo Borst is the latest to join that list, criticising the youngster’s performance against PSV Eindhoven at the weekend and labelling the deal to sign him from Rangers as the ‘bad buy of the year’.
“(It was a) lousy but delightful fighting game against PSV,” he wrote in his column for Algemeen Dagblad.
“They had the level of Calvin Bassey. Goodness gracious. We had already found out that this powerhouse cannot play football, but defensively he also falls short.
“With one push, he allowed himself to be cornered by the crafty Luuk de Jong. It became the opening goal. Schreuder’s team couldn’t get over that. Bassey is already the bad buy of the year.”
That seems a little harsh, and the defender will hope to regain the form he showed under Van Bronckhorst at Rangers.
