Rangers: Ally McCoist baffled live on talkSPORT over ‘strange’ Jack Butland news
Ally McCoist has questioned what Rangers star Jack Butland has to do to earn an England recall following his latest snub.
Speaking on talkSPORT on Monday (25 March, 07:58am), the pundit said it’s “strange” that players who aren’t getting in their club sides are being picked ahead of the 31-year-old after Burnley keeper James Trafford has now been called up to the side in place of the injured Sam Johnstone.
He added that the Light Blues stopper has been “fantastic” since making the move to Ibrox last summer, but it hasn’t been enough to tempt Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate into handing him a recall.
“I’ve said it for a couple of weeks, I don’t know what he’s got to do,” said McCoist. “Certainly his performances and his form have been fantastic and there’s now injured players and guys effectively not playing getting picked before him. That’s Gareth’s prerogative, but it’s definitely a strange one to me.”
Jack Butland deserves England recall amid Rangers form
There is no doubt that Butland deserves a recall to the England side on the back of his impressive form for Rangers so far this season.
It was harsh to leave him out of the original squad, but after the 21-year-old Trafford has now jumped the queue ahead of him, it probably feels a bit personal for the keeper.
There is an argument that the decision could have been made because the Burnley man was already with the England U-21s side and it could have been a waste of Butland’s time to just link up with the squad for a couple of days.
But that is surely something he would have been more than happy to do as just getting back amongst the squad for the first time since 2018 would have been a positive step.
After registering 23 clean sheets in 47 matches during this campaign, there has to be more behind Southgate’s decision as he may be wrongly questioning whether the keeper is playing at a good enough standard to call him up.
In other Rangers news, Neil Lennon has labelled a situation as “unacceptable” after what happened to the Gers.
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