Butland: 'Belief is still there' that Rangers can get season back on track

Jack Butland insists the pain from the 3-0 defeat at Celtic Park won’t eradicate the belief in the Rangers squad as they aim to put it right.

The goalkeeper admits the disappointment will linger until after the international break before they have to dust themselves down and get back to winning ways against Dundee United at Tannadice.

And despite having some mouth-watering Europa League fixtures to look forward to, the goalkeeper says the league is their main priority after falling five points behind only four games in.

Rangers have only won one of the last 13 matches against their rivals and some fans turned up at Ibrox to vent their anger at the players and Philippe Clement after the game.

But Butland also echoed the manager’s post-match comments that there were some positives to take from their performance in the opening stages of the game.

The goalkeeper said: “We’ve got a tricky period now where we don’t have a game for a couple of weeks. That’s going to be the difficult thing. We’re going to be thinking about it for a long time.

“We’re going to have days to look back at it. We’re going to have a lot of training sessions between now and the next game. It’s important that we do pick them up. The next day we’re in, it’s not going to just disappear. There’s no danger of that.

“It’s going to be something that’s going to be fresh on people’s minds for a while. And it needs to be because that’s how important it is to us and to the club. So, yes, there are things to work on, things to get better at, be more efficient.

“But I think the belief is there and I hope that shows at least that we’re still fighting.”

Both Clement and Butland pointed to Rangers’ positive start which saw Cyriel Dessers and Rabbi Matondo miss chances in the opening 10 minutes, although the former was flagged offside.

“It’s hugely disappointing, there were a lot of things that we were working on coming into it and from previous games that we felt we didn’t have enough control of the ball and control of the game and found ourselves defending way too much.

“I think we showed early positive signs of trying to be brave on the ball, trying to control some of the games ourselves and not feeling like we were under the cosh, which is something they do well here by trying to put you under pressure early.

“We created some chances early on, but we don’t take them, then we defend a couple of situations poorly and find ourselves facing an uphill battle.

“That’s the reality of what we need to do better in these games, we have given away too many opportunities that we can avoid, and that’s something we will need to be better at going forward.

“It hurts, it’s not what we want and not what we believe the club is about, hopefully we’ll be going back to Ibrox soon and be back with the fans and start kicking on and putting this behind us.

“We have some great European nights and fixtures to look forward to, the league is still our main focus so we have some work today.

“While there were some good signs today, we need to be better.”