Joe Aribo the enigma: How £300k Rangers signing turned into £10m EPL target

It needed someone on the other end. Someone to pluck the ball out of the sky then dispatch past Craig Gordon to land a huge blow on Hearts.

That someone was Joe Aribo.

What he produced was absolutely ridiculous. Stunning, sublime, sexy, even. That was just the touch. A cross-field pass coming over his shoulder. Watching it back over and over you think he’s going to control it with his right but instead it’s his left, which allows him to not break stride. The touch was perfect to allow him to stay ahead of John Souttar before firing across Gordon and into the corner.

You look around the Scottish Premiership, very few are capable of such moments. Aribo is very much included in those few.

Enigma

A special talent. Balance, intelligence, technique, vision and awareness. But one of, at times, contradictions. He could be so easy on the eye one moment then ungainly the next. An illuminating presence who would return to the shadows. Goals of such beauty they deserved to be beamed across the world but missed chances so ghastly they belonged under a bridge.

“He was an enigma within Scottish football, capable of conjuring inexplicable moments of brilliance on the pitch, all the while never seeming entirely in control of his subsequent actions or thoughts,” is how Rangers author Adam Thornton put it in his new book ‘Gerrard’s Blueprint: The Tactical Philosophy Behind Rangers 55th Title Triumph’ (