I love a good transfer story and I love it when Scottish football’s profile is taken up a notch whenever a huge transfer is about to happen in the country.
Mostly because the majority of these types of transfer stories involve Celtic as we have the background and history of developing and selling our players for huge profit.
Look at the likes of Victor Wanyama and Gary Hooper (for the older generations) and for those of us in the younger generations, Moussa Dembele, Kieran Tierney, Virgil van Djik, Stuart Armstrong and Odsonne Edouard are more recent examples.
And the reason all players left for vast sums of money? Consistency not only domestically but also in Europe. The ability to showcase their skills over a prolonged period of time whilst picking up medals and showing it in Europe is what made teams like Arsenal, Southampton and Lyon pay vasts sums of money for them.
Which makes Alex McLeish’s assessment and comparison of Calvin Bassey to Kieran Tierney that bit more bizarre.
Bassey is a good player. Of course he is, but if people are really honest with themselves, and I mean really honest, the defender only got a look in towards the end of October and his form picked up from January/February onwards.
With only two medals to his name, it is ridiculous to compare him to Kieran Tierney as Alex McLeish is doing here. When speaking to STV News, McLeish was asked if he believed Bassey could fetch as much as Tierney did when he left for Arsenal.
The former Scotland manager said, “I would say yes.
“In the beginning when I saw Bassey I wasn’t sure if he was a left full-back, wing-back, centre-back and he’s been versatile enough to play in all three positions.
“I really enjoyed his cup final performance and that’s made me see why there’s so much attention being paid to him at the moment.”
Now, if Bassey continues his current form into next season, picks up a few more medals and performs in Europe then maybe we can talk Tierney levels of cash.
But right now? At this moment? Talk of £25m is premature at best, silly at worst.