Philippe Clement & Rangers must give Liam Kelly a run in goal | OneFootball

If Thursday taught us one thing about our Rangers squad, it’s that Jack Butland definitively needs to be ‘rested’, having been notably poor since March but completely unaccountable to his form.

Manager Philippe Clement created a rod for his own back in the summer when he foolishly held Butland on a pedestal and proclaimed him unsellable and the most important player at the club.

This gave the ex-England keeper a huge ego, and made the relationship between him and the club very weird, giving him licence to criticise Clement’s tactics against Lyon, who then bit back against Killie.

It’s not a healthy state of affairs, and Butland’s shambolic moment v FCSB, which he completely got away with, has persuaded a lot of fans that Scotland’s Liam Kelly deserves his chance now.

We know it’ll never happen, that Butland will never be dropped, but that Kelly shone in preseason during his brief cameo v Ajax while Butland continued to struggle suggests it’s time for Clement to get over himself and give Kelly a chance in goal.

Butland’s form this season has been poor – he is nowhere near the Super Jack Butland he was from August 2023-March, and has been living on that form ever since – he’s not making many good saves at all, and is certainly making many errors instead.

His kicking is a mess, and still, to this day, he’s fallen short of making that ‘miracle’ save that the likes of luminaries such as McGregor and Goram absolutely could.

Ibrox Noise indeed wasn’t completely blown away by Butland’s maiden season, rating it an 8/10 – and he’s unfortunately lived off those first 8 months… basically for the next 8.

Are we saying Liam Kelly is the answer? Not necessarily, but he’s never done anything other than be impressive, and he came back to Rangers to play, not to sit on the bench.

He is worth a pop, a punt, and the worst that happens is we learn he isn’t good enough and Butland goes back in.

But Kelly may just surprise us, and his manager.

But he needs that chance in the first place.