Jack Butland will see 'massive' Rangers with new eyes like I did as mentor sets demand of Man United keeper

Lee Clark once tipped Jack Butland to become the best keeper in Europe.

Ten years on he hopes the shot-stopper will finally get the platform to show he belongs at the top with a club he regards as one of the continent’s biggest. Rangers are understood to be closing in on a deal for Butland who has spent the past three years sitting on his backside on the bench at Crystal Palace or, more recently, on loan at Manchester United. Clark reckons a move to Govan would be perfect for the 30-year-old to get his career back on track.

The Geordie handed the keeper his big breakthrough at Birmingham 11 years ago and still wonders what might have been had he not been forced to sell the prize asset in his second season at the cash-stricken Blues. Brum’s rush it might have been for Butland who moved to Stoke in the Premier League for £3.5million. But Clark claimed at the time he’d lost a player who was set to become “long term, in my opinion, the best goalkeeper in Europe”.

Given he had already played at the Olympics for Team GB and become England’s youngest ever shot-stopper at 19 – a record he still holds – before Clark had even handed him his debut for Birmingham then it was no wonder he was held in such high esteem. But after leaving Stoke, Butland has played a total of just 17 games in three years since moving to Palace. And none of those in the past 12 months. It’s hardly ideal preparation for heading into the pressure-filled cauldron of keeping goal for Rangers. Especially when it would be to replace a man many hold as the club’s greatest ever goalie.

But should the move go through, Clark has no doubt the 6ft 5in shot-stopper will prove he’s lost none of the ability that saw him stand out a decade ago at Brum. He said: “Jack is