Former Rangers defender David Bates is beginning to shine in the Belgian Pro League following a nightmare 2019/20 season.
Bates played 28 times at centre-back for the Gers before being released in 2018 and making a surprise switch to the German second division to join Hamburger SV.
After an encouraging start to his time there, he fell down the pecking order and was sent out on loan to Sheffield Wednesday last season.
Things did not go according to plan at the EFL Championship club, though, as he only made one first-team appearance, with injury ruling him out of much of the campaign.
Unsurprisingly, that wasn’t enough to get him back into the first-team fold at HSV, so he was shipped out on loan once again in August 2020, this time joining Belgian top-flight club Cercle Brugge.
Injuries were once again a factor and he wasn’t able to establish himself in the team during the first half of the campaign, but since the turn of the year, he’s started to make a real impact.
The Scotland international has started nine of Cercle’s last ten league fixtures and has helped to shore up a defence that had consistently been leaking goals.
Playing at the heart of a back three, Bates contributed to three consecutive clean sheets in February, with his adopted side picking up seven points from a possible nine, and he believes he’s benefitted greatly from an extended run in the team.
“Personally, things are also going a lot better for me than in the first part of the season,” the 24-year-old told Cerclebrugge.be. “I played very little at Hamburg and Sheffield Wednesday last season and arrived only late in the preparation at Cercle. So I started the season behind and struggled to get into the rhythm.”
“I needed to be able to play a number of games in a row and I got that chance in recent weeks. With Jean Marcelin and Strahinja [Pavlović], the interplay is also getting smoother. We are quite complementary to each other and are getting to know each other well.”
Cercle are currently 16th in the table, just two points above Royal Excel Mouscron, who are in the relegation play-off spot.
They have an option to buy Bates at the end of the season, which they will surely now consider, especially if they manage to avoid the drop.
Two other former Rangers players look near certain to be relegated, though, after their club lost for the 21st time in 26 league matches over the weekend.
