Jack Butland insists Rangers did not deserve to lose in the Premier Sports Cup Final against Celtic.
The 31-year-old goalkeeper was powerless as Celtic lashed home five penalties against Rangers, with Ridvan Yilmaz missing a decisive spotkick for the Gers.
Speaking after the game, which had finished 3-3 after extra time, Jack Butland reckons Rangers did enough to win the match.
The comments come amid fierce criticism over VAR’s decision not to intervene with a Vaclav Cerny penalty kick claim in extra time.
The situation has drawn huge criticism from across Rangers circles, none more so than from manager Philippe Clement.
‘Rangers didn’t deserve to lose v Celtic’
“We didn’t deserve to lose that game and penalties is a cruel way to lose as well,” Butland told Sky Sports.
”So yeah, gutted. I think you saw (our mentality) today.
“I think what’s hurt us today is giving away two goals after half time we could do better with, which makes the game then hard.
”We got ourselves back in it and didn’t deserve to get beat so I think there’s a lot that we can take from that.
”That’s why it hurts so much. We really felt like we had an opportunity to win that and like I said, penalties is a cruel way to lose.
”The boys didn’t deserve that. The efforts that they’ve put in this week deserved more from the two games, none more so than today.
”There’s no excuses. It’s a case of (being) gutted that we didn’t manage to get it done.
“The effort that the boys have put in in a really short space of time against Premier League opposition and today in a Final has been incredible.
”We deserved more from the two games.”
Rangers win over Celtic ‘a matter of time’
The Rangers goalkeeper also reckons that’s it’s just a ‘matter of time’ before his team get one over on Celtic.
Rangers fans are already counting down the days to a meeting between the two sides on January 2nd in a Scottish Premiership Old Firm clash at Ibrox.
The clash will see 50k Rangers fans at Ibrox with no away support and it’s a moment where many expect the club to finally give Celtic a bloody nose.
”Today is going to hurt for a long time because it’s one of them where you felt like you did enough,” said Butland.
”The boys dug it out and worked extremely hard. A few moments have hurt us and we’re going to have to deal with that.
”I don’t think we’ve had that fear (of Celtic) but we’ve not also put in a performance that warrants the belief.
”We do believe and I think that performance today showed that we have the quality to compete and to beat them.
”We certainly have the desire and the energy to go in quick succession like we’ve done this week.
”So for us it feels like a matter time but we obviously want that sooner rather than later.”
