While Jack Butland is rolling back the years at Rangers, another highly-experienced goalkeeper who found himself on the radar of the Scottish Premiership giants is doing something very similar south of the border.
Vaclav Hladky, speaking to Football Scotland over the summer, admitted that he ‘discussed a transfer with Rangers’ while leaving St Mirren in the summer of 2020. In the end, it was Hladky’s desire to ‘prove myself in English football’ which had the Czech shot-stopper putting pen to paper with ambitious Salford City instead.
Three years on, and now standing between the sticks at Ipswich Town, no one could say Hladky is not doing just that.
“He’s been excellent,” Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna tells TWTD of his 32-year-old giant. “We had every confidence in Vaz because we’ve seen, certainly I’ve seen, how he’s worked over the last 18 months.
‘We’ve seen how he’s worked and the fantastic mentality he has to training every day. His performances gave us every indication that we had a very good goalkeeper there.”
Rangers missed out on Vaclav Hladky
The statistics speak for themselves.
In the absence of the injured Christian Walton, Hladky has been on the losing side just once this season, Ipswich winning eight out of his nine games in the starting XI. Per FotMob, only five goalkeepers in England’s top five leagues can boast a superior ‘goals prevented’ numbers.
Hladky admitted, when Rangers were interested, that he had fallen in love with the city of Glasgow. But, in his new Suffolk home, he is finding that the admiration is mutual.
Ipswich Town dreaming of Premier League return
“There was certainly no undue panic when Christian was injured. Vaz (Hladky) has come into the team,” McKenna adds, Ipswich second in the table, dreaming of successive promotions while beating Premier League Wolves in the EFL Cup on Tuesday night.
“He brings his own slant to it. He brings his own qualities to the position as well, and he’s certainly brought that to the team.
“He’s been an important player for us, and it’s great to have such quality in that position.”
With Butland also putting together quite the collection of talismanic performances in Scotland, McKenna’s Rangers counterpart Mick Beale would undoubtedly agree.
