There’s been a bit of hoohah over Calvin Bassey after his Ajax side were absolutely demolished by in-form Napoli on their own patch.
Not long after Rangers went to Holland got trounced 4-0, Ajax themselves were taken apart by Napoli to the tune of 6, with some criticism aimed at Bassey as part of the debacle.
We’re not exactly big fans of Bassey here on Ibrox Noise – few readers will have seen much regret in our coverage of his departure. He’s a good defender, but not a great one, and his defence has conceded 11 goals in the last four matches, after that blistering start saw just 3 conceded in the first 7. He earned us £23M and we’re more than happy with that.
So we’re not going to join in the hate fest some fans for the guy, criticising him online and blaming him solely, but it does show the staggering leap the UEL to UCL is, and the even bigger gulf between SPL and Eredivisie.
That’s right, the gulf between the Scottish top flight and the one Bassey is now in is literally a chasm, and you need to be a truly top player to thrive in it, to make the step up.
It’s taken Nathan Patterson a long time to settle in to the PL, and of course, just as he finally did, he got ruled out for the season in a piece of utterly cursed luck. But Joe Aribo is handling the PL well, and has made the step up impressively, with 3 goals in 9.
And that’s part of the point – the difference in worlds between the Europa League and UCL is far smaller than the SPL to any of the top 5.
The SPL is a complete backwater, the dirge of Europe, while Belgium, Holland and Portugal are all world class and then the big five themselves are on a different planet.
So while Bassey maybe isn’t having it all his own way, it’s always intriguing to see how our departed players do in the best leagues – Umar Sadiq is another who is absolutely storming it up in Spain, even if he has cruelly been taken out by injury as well.
Meanwhile, Amad Diallo is struggling in the Championship with Sunderland, his manager quite vocally criticising his decision making.
Our point?
It’s more telling to see how our ex-players get on in much stronger domestic leagues than to put much quarter into the rich mans’ club that is the Champions League.
And on that front, most of them are doing very well indeed.
Dont agree the eredivise is miles better then the spl ,rangers have a superb record v top dutch teams psv ,feyenoord and az alkmaar have all been taken care of in recent years, ajax was a shocking performance by us ,Rangers and that other lot would be sitting comfortably in 2 nd and 3rd in their league at least ,there is a lot of mince in their league as well ,dont kid yourself .
The real gap is with the top teams from england ,germany ,spain ,france and italy and everyone else .
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer ,as shown by our new pathetic tv deal .
We have a winger whose worth £7m but very rarely plays it, Ryan kents workload and commitment is questioned quite often.
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