Rangers fans slightly underwhelmed at being linked with West Ham’s 21-year old PL2 LB Emmanuel Longelo might do well to remember where Calvin Bassey came from.
The London Stadium’s reserve LB, who has made a couple of senior appearances (one in the EFL cup, one in the UEL) for David Moyes’ side, is under the spotlight at the moment with Rangers said to be interested in bringing him north.
Potentially a replacement for either Borna Barisic or Rangers’ superstar Nigerian, Longelo is yet to break through at West Ham, with his being on the cusp of doing so, but anyone slightly disappointed at a reserve player mooted for a switch to Rangers should hark back at the non-existent stock of Calvin Bassey when we made our move.
And even then, his first season at Ibrox was far from impressive.
But that summer of 2021 when he returned as a proper athlete having grown a lot, and worked out a tonne, was when we started seeing the real player emerge.
We’re not saying we can repeat Bassey via Longelo, but history tells us just because this isn’t a West Ham regular doesn’t mean he’s not good enough for Rangers.
The job of our scouts is to unearth these hidden gems, these Kamaras, Basseys etc – and turn them into multimillion pound assets.
If Longelo is considered the right stuff by Gio and co, we’re all for it.