JACK Butland has insisted Rangers will have no difficulty lifting themselves for the Premier Sports Cup final against Celtic at Hampden on Sunday despite their mentally and physically draining Europa League encounter with Spurs last night.
And the Ibrox goalkeeper is confident that Leon Balogun will rise to the occasion if John Souttar, who limped off injured in the first half of the match against the London club, is ruled out of the match against the Scottish champions.
The former England internationalist stressed that Philippe Clement’s men are used to negotiating punishing runs of domestic and European fixtures and will be able to perform at their best against opponents who have had four days to prepare.
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“We've done Thursday-Sunday and Wednesday-Saturday for the last 18 months,” he said. “We’ve done that since I've been here and long before that. So, there's no excuse on that front.
“We've got great facilities to go and recover. We'll do that, get a good night's sleep, report back and get ready for the weekend. That's what playing for this club is all about. There's games every three or four days.
“Some of them aren't pretty and they can't be at times, but when given the opportunity you've got to put in performances and we're doing that at the minute and we need that to continue.”
“Leon performed well,” he said. “I think that shows the group we have wants to be successful. So, no matter what happens with who's available and who's not, we can play well.
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“We had players that didn't start on the weekend who came in or came on against Spurs and performed. Leon did that after he came on for John. The performance was top and that's what we need from everybody in this busy schedule. There’s no better time than now with these two games this week.”
Butland, who helped Rangers to win the Premier Sports Cup for the first time in 12 years last season, made a mistake which allowed Celtic to win the Scottish Cup final last season and he admitted he is determined to come out on top this weekend.
“It would mean an awful lot,” he said “That's what we're focusing on. It's a team that's playing well. But we feel really confident that we're going into that game ready and we intend to win again.”
