‘I psyched out ex-Man Utd star with penalty save he should’ve seen coming’

Jack Butland has disclosed how training with Brazilian midfielder Fred at Manchester United helped him save a crucial penalty for Rangers in the Europa League against Fenerbahce

Former England goalkeeper Jack Butland has explained how he used a short loan spell at Manchester United to psych out an old teammate. The 32-year-old spent just six months at Old Trafford on loan from Crystal Palace in the second half of the 2022-23 season without making a single appearance before later moving to join Scottish giants Rangers.

However, his time at the club’s training ground proved invaluable when he saved a penalty from ex-United midfielder Fred last month. Butland was in goal as Rangers came up against the Brazilian’s current team Fenerbahce in a Europa League clash at Ibrox in early March.

With the score level at 3-3 at the end of the two-legged last-16 tie, the game went to a penalty shootout. Butland was the hero on the night, making a match-winning save to deny Fred from the spot.

He has now admitted that his experience of practising penalties together at United was key to his success at that moment. Butland described his elation over that save on former Red Devils shot-stopper Ben Foster’s Fozcast podcast.

He said: “You know what the feeling of saving a penalty is like – it’s amazing because no-one expects you to. I saved the first one, and then with Fred, I knew what he was going to do. I looked at him as we’d had six months together at United.

“We must have practised penalties for the competitions that we were in every day for three months. I’d faced him a million times, and he does that stuttered run-up, and the minute he did it, I knew I had it.”

Foster then asked whether he thought Fred had experienced a similar flashback before taking the penalty. Butland said: “I’d love to ask him. I didn’t get the chance to afterwards, but he was probably not in the best of moods.

“I saw him in the line-up, and I don’t know whether it just jogged his memory and he remembered my face. It jogged my memory as well because I’d faced him in training. He went, and he did the same routine that he did 18 months ago when we were practising.”

He added: “It was one of those where it was a nice height and the minute it left his foot, I knew I had it. It was perfect and it couldn’t have gone any better that night.”

Despite his heroics, Butland was surprisingly dropped by Rangers manager Barry Ferguson for Thursday night’s Europa League quarter-final first leg against Athletic Bilbao. Liam Kelly played in goal instead after a series of high-profile mistakes by Butland in Scottish Premiership matches.

The decision proved to be the correct one for Ferguson after Kelly made a late penalty save to earn 10-man Rangers a goalless draw following Robin Propper’s early dismissal. Ferguson described leaving Butland on the bench as “one of the toughest things I’ve had to do”.

The player himself revealed to Foster that he has felt the pressure of holding onto the No. 1 spot at Rangers. He said: “Down in England, you can be at teams where things will go against you. You can have a bad day and you can lose but you can go back to normality after it. Here, it’s the end of the world, and you feel it.

“When you’ve been up here for long enough, and you understand what the club’s about, and you understand what the demands are and the expectations are, you feel it. You don’t need the fans to remind you – you know.

“You lose a game and you just want to get home, back indoors, and it’s like it is the end of the world. Plans are cancelled, rounds of golf are cancelled that were booked in. It’s not the right time because it means that much to the fans.”

Despite highlighting the stresses of being under the microscope at Ibrox, Butland called it a “special” place to play football. He also expressed his hope that Rangers can give their fans something to cheer about before the end of the season.

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