Jack Butland claims Rangers just keeping look ahead to the next challenge after their 2-1 win against Kilmarnock on Wednesday night kept them two points clear of Celtic at the top of the cinch Premiership.
Killie had beaten Michael Beale’s Rangers 1-0 on the opening league game of the season, but found successor Philippe Clement’s Light Blues more robust – eventually.
Danny Armstrong scored with an 11th-minute penalty after his cross had struck the arm of John Lundstram arm before Butland made a great save from Matty Kennedy’s close-range strike early in the second half, which proved pivotal.
Two goals in four minutes – a trademark free-kick from Rangers captain James Tavernier and a Tom Lawrence strike – made it 11 wins in a row for Rangers to keep them ahead of the Hoops, who demolished Dundee 7-1 at Parkhead.
Butland told Rangers TV that attention turns to Motherwell at Ibrox on Saturday.
He said: “We just keep going. Three points is all that matters at the minute.
“Yes, we’d love to have a clean sheet – penalties is frustrating – but we’re getting the wins and that’s what we need to do.
“Obviously it’s a lot better feeling than it was the last time we came here.
“So we’ll enjoy it, get back to training, recover and look forward to Motherwell at the weekend.
“There’s never any panic, we just remained calm, kept reiterating at half-time why we’re in the position we are in and how we’ve got there.
“And we just continued to do that in the second half, remained calm and in the end we got two brilliant finishes from Tav and Tom and I guess it’s three points that we were after.”
Butland enjoyed his reflex save from Kennedy, diving low to his right to claw the ball away, saying: “It was a huge moment. I think the lad thought he had scored so it’s nice to be able to have that moment. That can sometimes take the wind out of a team’s sails as well.
“It seemed to give us a lift. It could have gone a little bit sideways at that point if that goes in so it was nice to contribute with that and ultimately then set us up for a really big second half.”
It was another huge contribution from set-piece specialist Tavernier, who scored his 20th goal of the season.
“That’s what Tav does,” said Butland. “It’s not easy for someone to step up and take penalties like he does and score goals like he does and especially the free-kicks as well.
“It is something that he works on religiously every day.
“So when you’re a leader like he is, when you play the way he does and when you practice the way he does, those opportunities go in and he earns them and he’s come up with another vital goal for us.”