When Rangers were looking to replace Allan McGregor they hoped that Robby McCrorie would make the step up.
The academy graduate was never really given a proper chance and Jack Butland arrived to take over the responsibility between the sticks.
Butland wasn’t always first choice for Rangers though with one of the players who has jumped the queue for England at international level also considered.
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Former Rangers target James Trafford breaking records
James Trafford was a youth player at Man City when Rangers considered the now Burnley goalkeeper.
What looked like a punt on a relatively untested youngster was soon proven to be a good bit of scouting when the 22-year old eventually left for £19m.
A difficult first season with Burnley in the Premier League wasn’t helped by Vincent Kompany’s cavalier style of play, however, under Scott Parker, he has now firmly found his feet.
Having only conceded nine league goals all season, Trafford is on course to break several records.
The most recent clean sheet took his tally to nine in a row and the complicated statistics for calculating how good a keeper is suggests that he has prevented nearly five goals in this period.
Scott Parker tips Trafford for the top
It’s little wonder Parker has tipped him for the highest level:
“I’ve got nothing but positive things to say about James,” Parker told the BBC.
“When I first came in, there were some struggles and he came off the back of a difficult season.
“For such a young boy coming into that division, he had some hard times, some challenging times.
“But this is a special goalkeeper. He has absolutely huge potential. I would have said the same thing last week or four weeks ago.
“He is confident, he believes in himself and you need that to get to the top, top level. He has that and he backs it up with what he does in between the posts.”
The Championship is an unforgiving league in which anyone can beat anyone, apart from, it would appear, James Trafford, who nobody is beating just now.
