Yahoo Sport 
Jack Butland admits Rangers upturn has been 'too long coming' but has message for cynics who wrote them off
Old Firm football can be a fickle business, as Jack Butland has quickly learned from his 18 months in the Glasgow goldfish bowl.
A mere 19 days separated the two 1-1 draws Rangers played out against Dundee United and Tottenham Hotspur. But while the first was greeted like a death in the family, the second is being looked upon by the Gers faithful as proof Philippe Clement’s side are finally reborn. The contrast of those two occasions could hardly be starker.
The score stalemate against Jim Goodwin’s Tangerines was delayed by 45 minutes as the United team bus was held up on the snowbound road to Glasgow. The final whistle brought a reception that was even frostier as the Ibrox crowd reacted to a result that left them trailing Celtic by 11 points with another chorus of boos. After the game, Clement was forced to admit his credit line with the supporters was almost up.
But fast forwarding to the scenes that followed Thursday’s night’s electrify Europa League clash with Spurs, it’s clear the big Belgian is now back in the black with the Light Blue legions. Fourteen goals in the space of four victories over Nice, St Johnstone, Kilmarnock and Ross County certainly bought the under-pressure gaffer some time.
Now he can well and truly buy back the affections of the Gers support if his team can build on the promise shown against Ange Postecoglou’s North Londoners and topple Celtic in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup final. It still looks like this sudden resurgence may have come too late to rescue their title hopes.
But Butland hopes Rangers’ return to form has arrived in the nick of time as they head for Hampden. Asked to explain the rapid mood swing around Ibrox, the keeper said: "That's how quick it can change.
“If you put in performances, put in the work, you're then in better positions to show the quality the boys have. And when we play as a collective unit, we can cause any team problems as we showed against Spurs.
“I'm really proud of that. It's been coming. Too long coming, but we're getting there. We're building some momentum and it's important that we continue that on Sunday.”
Reminded that it was only three weeks since his team were being written off, he added: "That's what people tend to do with this club and hopefully time and time again we continue to disappoint people and get back to where we should be. It's a long journey.
“Listen, there were things that we didn’t do in the first half of that Dundee United game. It wasn’t about the goal we conceded. It was about what we didn’t do with work rate and things that we just didn’t quite get on the same page with in the first half.
"The second half, we had it and created enough chances to win two or three games. But sometimes things will go your way and sometimes it doesn't. It didn’t that day and we got punished for it.
"You never want to take those lessons, but perhaps it was a warning sign of, ‘Right, these are the reasons why these games are becoming difficult’.
"It's because we're not knocking down the door early, we’re making it difficult for ourselves. In recent weeks we’ve learned from that and really taken the game to people."
It says something about how far this Gers team - one that has dropped 13 domestic points in just 15 Premiership games this term - has come that they trudged off gutted not to have beaten Spurs. They might have snuck it had it not been for Fraser Forster’s late heroics as the former Celtic stopper denied Cyriel Dessers at the death.
Butland said: “It was a fantastic performance - but even with that, we're in there thinking what could have been. We felt we deserved to win the game and one moment took that away from us. That's a testament to how well the boys played, in that we're a little bit disappointed at the same time as being really proud of what we did."
Gers have no time to dwell on a rich-deserved point as they now gear up for Brendan Rodgers’ team - an opponent they’ve tried and failed to beat five times under Clement. “That's all that matters now,” said Butland. “We're going to enjoy what we did on Thursday.
“We’ll look at the things we could’ve done better, things that we did do really well and take the confidence from it. But it's proof of what we’re capable of doing. It should give everybody confidence for the weekend.
“Are we concerned about the physical exertions? No, not at all. We’ve done Thursday-Sundays and Wednesday-Saturdays for the last 18 months. So, there's no excuse on that front. That's what playing for this club is all about. There's games every three days.
"Some of them aren’t pretty but when given the opportunity, you've got to put in performances and we're doing that at the minute. We need that to continue."
There were plenty of positives to take from Thursday, be it the stirring display of Nico Raskin or the the continuing emergence of new talisman Hamza Igamane. The one worry, however, is the injury knock sustained by John Souttar midway through the first half.
Butland, though, has every confidence in his replacement Leon Balogun. The Englishman said: "He performed well. I think that shows the group wants to be successful.
"No matter what happens with who's available and who's not, as you saw with Leon coming on for John, the performance was top. That’s what we need from everybody in this busy schedule.
"I said to Nico after the game it's one of the best, if not the best, I've ever seen him play. Hopefully he can top that on the weekend.
“It'd mean an awful lot to win on Sunday. That's what we're focusing on. It's a team that's playing well - but we feel really confident that we're going into that game ready and we intend to win again."
