Criticism of player after Rangers exit ‘justified’ – ‘Worthless’ in one position, has ‘basic skills’ to succeed

Following his big exit from Rangers, who were not managed by Michael Beale at the time, Calvin Bassey has found life hard in the Netherlands.

The defender was bought by Ajax from the Ibrox side for €23m to try and make up for the loss of Lisandro Martínez, who left for Manchester United, but he has not filled that gap.

In fact, a lot of his performances since leaving Rangers have been criticised, and the fact the whole team were struggling under Alfred Schreuder won’t have helped.

Since Heitinga taking over, however, the club have found the taste of victory again, and have done so mostly without Bassey, who has found himself on the bench more often than not.

That’s a stark contrast to the life he enjoyed towards the end of his Rangers spell, but he has had to adapt to a brand new style of football, and may have to stick to life as a centre-back.

This is according to journalist Simon Zwartkruis, who believes in the expensive defender, and wants him to start against Union Berlin in the Europa League.

He told Voetbal International, relayed by Ajax Showtime: “Bassey is worthless as a left-back, but I think he’s fine as a central defender. Bassey has, of course, had a lot of justified criticism, partly because of the transfer amount for which he was bought, but a player can’t do much about that.

“He is fast and can defend well, which are the basic skills for a central defender. You can use that very well against Union Berlin.”