I questioned Rangers signing Jack Butland but he’s up there with Goram, Klos and McGregor – Barry Ferguson
The Record Sport columnist and Ibrox legend has kept an eye on the keeper since their days together at Birmingham City.
Really good goalkeepers can be trusted to pull off 99 per cent of the saves expected of them. And I’ve played with a few of them in my time.
However, the ones who are not are made by the genuinely excellent keepers. And it’s not often that you find guys like that. I used to sit in the stand at Ibrox as a child and see Andy Goram perform often. I had the good fortune to share a dressing room as a footballer with Allan McGregor and then Stefan Klos. I also lost count of the number of times they would come up with something unusual right when the team needed their support the most.
When I watched them stop a particular goal, I would think to myself, “Wow, that’s quite a save.” Okay, everyone else needs to remove their finger right now. Thus,when Jack Butland threw himself to his right to claw out a shot from Matty Kennedy at point blank range on Wednesday night, I turned to my two boys and told them, ‘That’s the game changer’. Sometimes, in the tightest moments and the biggest matches, it takes something like that to inspire the rest of the side.
You become even more motivated to play your part by making an impact at the other end of the pitch when you witness your own keeper going above and beyond in the line of fire. Yes, at a pivotal moment in the game, James Tavernier took the game by storm when he produced another fantastic free-kick to draw Rangers level at Kilmarnock. When he scored the winning goal to maintain my former team’s lead in the standings, Tom Lawrence also stepped up to the plate.
Similar to Butland, they should be commended greatly for having the guts and perseverance needed to get their team out of a difficult situation. However, we’ll address them later. For Rangers would have needed to score twice to leave Rugby Park with a draw if Butland hadn’t made that save. And it would have given them the opportunity to transfer some of the momentum they have been working so hard to accumulate over the past few months to Parkhead, where Celtic were tearing apart Dundee.
Sitting on the couch at Killie, the three of us were watching the game. However, I kept one eye on the score in the other game, just like you do. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 goals! “All right, I don’t think they’re going to let it slip from here,” I said to myself. It was crucial that the Rangers were able to improve on their own outcome because of this. And why it’s important to acknowledge Butland’s role in doing that.
When Jack was a young player coming through at Birmingham City, we could all see his potential for someone so young. That was when I first got to know Jack. Ever since, I’ve kept a watch on him because you want to see these folks succeed.
And to be honest, there was some doubt in my mind when Rangers signed him in the summer of last year because he hadn’t played much football for teams like Crystal Palace and Manchester United in the preceding couple of years. I questioned whether anything might have gone wrong.
He will undoubtedly be included in the upcoming England squad, and I will be shocked if Gareth Southgate does not select him for the summer’s Euros.
No-one is going to tell me that he’s not every bit as good or better than the likes of Jordan Pickford, Dean Henderson, Sam Johnstone or Nick Pope. And yes, I don’t even want to think about what might happen in the summer if he does head to Germany and then clubs in the Premier League realise what they’ve missed out on.
However, I asked Jack a few months back when we were filming a Christmas commercial for the club if he was having fun in Glasgow. Without a doubt, he is utterly enamored with every aspect of playing for the Rangers, including the intensity, pressure, and responsibility.
The No. 1 shirt at Ibrox can be bulky, as many others have discovered over the years. However, it appears that this guy was meant for it. That’s why everyone else gets fired up when he pulls off a save like the one he did the other night. The man is a leader, a winner, and a paradigm shiftper. Additionally, by keeping Rangers in it, he gave Tavernier and Lawrence the chance to do something about it at the other end of the pitch against a very impressive Kilmarnock side.
Make no mistake, Derek McInnes has done an excellent job down there – his team is as organised defensively as it is dangerous going forward – and I knew Rangers were going to have their work cut out on Wednesday on that plastic pitch. So to get back up the road with three points in the bag was huge because not many others will do that between now and the end of the season.
After a challenging first half, the manager once again fulfilled his role by making significant adjustments. However, Philippe Clement is aware that in the heat of battle, he needs his big players to step up and perform. It was Butland. Tavernier followed. Lawrence then turned the one-point lead into three with an incredible goal that grabbed the show.
Rangers finally had to hold tough and defend their own box in the last minutes as corners and throw-ins rained down on top of them. That’s when you need guys in the trenches by your side who are willing to give it their all, even if it means getting a size nine in the dish!Not a single one of them was deemed inadequate.
That is what I like so much about the team Clement is building. These guys have the balls to wear that jersey. And Jack Butland’s might be as big as they come.
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