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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Mark Pirie

Calvin Bassey in ultimate Rangers salute as battling James Tavernier earns Celtic show of respect

Former Rangers defender Calvin Bassey was keeping an eye on the derby showdown with Celtic - and singled out James Tavernier for special praise after the Ibrox blockbuster.

It was an end-to-end spectacle in Govan; Daizen Maeda opened the scoring for Ange Postecoglou's men in the fifth minute after taking advantage of an Alfredo Morelos mistake to side the ball under Allan McGregor, before a half-time team talk from Michael Beale revived Rangers in the second half. Ryan Kent levelled the game with a spectacular strike before skipper Tavernier rifled a precise penalty beyond Hoops' goalkeeper Joe Hart to turn the game on its head.

Kyogo Furuhashi levelled for the visitors to round off a dramatic derby, but it was a flashpoint involving Tavernier and Celtic star Maeda that earned plaudits from Ajax star Bassey - who left Ibrox for the Eredivisie champions in the summer. With Rangers leading 2-1, the skipper headed a deep Celtic ball away, but collided with the Japan international as he made the clearance.

That left Tavernier in a heap on the Ibrox pitch before he received treatment with blood trickling from his nose. He would see out the 90 minutes after stopping the flow with cotton.

Bassey took to Instagram to pay tribute to his former teammate and his battling performance, sharing a snap of the incident involving the Celtic attacker. He posted an emoji saluting his former skipper for continuing to see out the top of the table clash.

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