Sky Sports pundit stunned by what ‘incredible’ James Tavernier and Jack Butland did for Rangers vs Hearts
Rangers duo Jack Butland and James Tavernier wowed Kenny Miller with an “incredible” pair of stops to keep Hearts from taking the lead in the first half at Tynecastle.
The Sky Sports pundit reacted live on the broadcaster’s match coverage on 6 December just inside the half-hour mark, when Butland produced an excellent close-range save to thwart Lawrence Shankland after he was set up by Nathaniel Atkinson.
Then as the ball fell to Alex Cochrane with an almost open goal captain Tavernier kept it out on the line with a crucial block, to keep the game goalless before Abdallah Sima’s opener a few minutes later.
Miller said (8.25pm): “It’s an incredible bit of play. George Grant’s causing Rangers all sorts of problems just by picking the ball in that 10 position, but Atkinson does great, releases Shankland, it’s an incredible save from Butland.
“But the block from Tavernier on the follow up. It just looks as if he’s going to volley this into the empty net and Tavernier gets his body across and blocks it. It may be a VAR check, it does hit his arm, but it’s down by his side. It’s not a penalty.
“It’s an incredible block.”
Vital
It looked for all the world like at least one of the Hearts attack was about to put their side ahead in that passage of play, and on the balance of the action up until then they would probably have deserved it.
Butland, as so often this season, was equal to Shankland’s effort despite having little obvious work to do prior to that.
Tavernier’s block was all the more unlikely when it seemed Cochrane could just pick his spot, but the skipper’s experience shone through and he kept it out.
That block seemed to startle the defender into life after an unsettled beginning to the match, as he was then the man who took the game by the scruff of the neck to advance into midfield and slide an excellent pass through the Jambos defence from deep in the 34th minute.
Sima ran onto it and slid home for his third goal inside a week after he netted both in the 2-0 win over St Mirren at the weekend.
While Butland hasn’t done a great deal that has required any criticism since his move to Ibrox Tavernier gets a lot of stick for his defensive work, but the block was a hugely important intervention before his more familiar attacking excellence.
In other Rangers news, an obvious personality clash is behind the relationship between two key Ibrox men being stretched to breaking point.