JACK Butland has revealed why he and his Rangers team mates remained on the pitch when Celtic were presented with the Premier Sports Cup trophy at Hampden on Sunday evening despite the excruciating pain of the narrow defeat.
Butland was utterly devastated when the Ibrox club were beaten 5-4 on penalties by their Parkhead rivals, who they had finished level with at the end of 120 minutes, in the showpiece match.
However, Philippe Clement was keen for every member of his squad to stay on the field and see the victors celebrate and the goalkeeper, who converted one of the spot kicks in the shoot-out, could understand exactly why.
The former England internationalist feels that watching their opponents, who surrendered the lead twice during regulation time, rejoice will simply fuel their desire to lift silverware in the coming months.
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“Oh, there's plenty of pain all right,” he said. “Look, we are rivals absolutely. But I wanted to see it. Maybe it's trying to wish it into existence for us and just understand. I don't think it would have made it feel any better if I had walked in prior to that. “But it's just something a few of us wanted to do, wanted to see it, wanted to feel that hurt. Yeah, try and put it away and make sure we win the next one.”
Rangers are currently 11 points behind leaders Celtic in the William Hill Premiership after 15 games – but Butland is refusing to accept the Scottish title race is over at this stage of the season.
The former Birmingham City, Stoke City and Crystal Palace man has been encouraged by how much the Glasgow club, who brought in no fewer than nine new players during the summer, have improved since losing 3-0 in the East End at the start of September.
He felt the display in the League Cup final showed, despite the bitterly disappointing final result, that they can now compete with Brendan Rodgers’ men for major honours in the 2024/25 campaign.
“The effort and the work rate and the quality that the boys showed so soon after Thursday (their Europa League game against Spurs in Govan) was excellent. To go for 120 minutes in the manner that we did, is credit to us as a group and to all the staff. “It doesn't make that an easier feeling, losing. But we'll look back on it in a few days and we'll be proud of the work that we've put in this week. But we haven't got the results that we wanted and probably deserved either. As a club we want to be successful, we want to push on, we want to succeed.”
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Butland continued: “At times this year, we haven't given the fans what they want to see. But I certainly feel in the last month, we've given them those performances, we've given them the consistency and the effort and the work rate that they expect to see.
“We feel that in the support for us. They were incredible from start to finish on Sunday. They willed us on and the boys stood up to it and pushed and pushed. So we do have great confidence and belief in the group. “I don't think you are able to come back in a game like that or put a performance in against a topside like Tottenham on Thursday if you don't have that confidence, you don't have that belief. We do and we just need to fine tune it now and make sure we get these turned into wins.” Butland confessed that he is already looking forward to Rangers playing Celtic at home at the start of next month in the league in the wake of the final at Hampden on Sunday.
“So, yes, January 2 is humongous. We've got three games between now and then that we need to win. But the reality is it's a huge one, we'll be looking forward to it. Days down the line, we'll look at today's performance and be proud of it.” Asked if only having two days to prepare for the final had been an issue towards the end of the Celtic match, Butland said: “We had the time that we had so it's impossible to measure whether things were any different with more time. “But the fact is, we had what we had and the boys were brilliant with that. They stuck together, put in a real team performance, worked hard for each other and played as a team. So, it's just about really commending the boys for being able to do that. But like I said, we deserved more and it certainly hurts."
