Red hot and the Red card – Aribo and Bassey in the news for contrasting reasons
While Aribo lit up St Mary’s with a stunning solo effort Bassey had a debut to forget with Ajax
Two Super Eagles stars who moved in the summer from Rangers to Southampton and Ajax respectively were in the next for contrasting reasons over the weekend.
Eagles playmaker Joe Aribo lit up St Mary’s with a stunning solo effort in their 1-2 defeat against 2021 Europa League winners Villarreal while Calvin Bassey had a debut to forget in Amsterdam when he received a red card, just minutes 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.
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.
