Philippe Clement must be cursed, it’s the only reason left why Rangers can’t beat Celtic regardless of how he sets his team up or how his team plays.
The manager was perplexed as to why Vaclav Cerny wasn’t awarded a penalty, but when extra-time was over, it should have been a fair fight – and yet it wasn’t.
Clement confirmed that the squad have been practising penalties all season, hence the sight of Jack Butland stepping up for Rangers, although it wasn’t his ability from the spot that was the problem.
Jack Butland the nearly man for Rangers
Butland has a couple of penalty saves to his name since walking through the doors of Ibrox, unfortunately, he never got close to any at Hampden.
The England international was seen checking his water bottle, as is the norm nowadays, with analysts providing where the takers recent penalties have been placed.
All of Celtic’s takers have taken them in recent years so it shouldn’t have been too hard a task.
They were good penalties, but there was a stark difference between Butland and Kasper Schmeichel and how they patrolled the box.
The Celtic keeper was allowed by John Beaton to stand on the penalty spot, mouth off to Rangers players, encroach in the penalty area, and then delay the kick by wandering over to his bottle before taking his place between the sticks.
How Butland could’ve done more to put off Celtic
Compare and contrast with Butland, who stood a yard behind his line and, despite his 6ft 5 frame, couldn’t have made himself less imposing.
Would it have made a difference if he’d towered over smaller players like Callum McGregor, Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate? We’ll never know.
In a game of small margins, on a flip of a coin, players have to take whatever advantage they can and make the most of it, on this occasion, Butland was simply too nice and let his opposite number dictate proceedings.
