Barry Ferguson reveals brutally honest Rangers sit down with Jack Butland and how ‘sore’ star responded.

During his time in charge, the Ibrox legend benched the goalkeeper in favour of Liam Kelly.

Barry Ferguson admits that the most difficult 20 minutes of his time in charge of Rangers were the conversations he had with Jack Butland after removing the custodian from the firing line.

Ferguson has revealed how he was filled with pride last Tuesday night when his former Birmingham City teammate roared back to form and kept the Ibroix side’s Champions League hopes alive.

Ferguson returned to the stadium for the first time since his stint as interim manager, and Butland made a series of outstanding saves to keep Panathinaikos from storming into an unrecoverable first-half lead.

Back in April, after a string of costly goalkeeping errors, Ferguson chose to start Liam Kelly in a Europa League last-16 match against Athletic Bilbao.

Speaking exclusively on tonight’s edition of our agenda-setting online show Hotline Live, Ferguson praises his former No.1 for rediscovering the kind of form that almost led to an England call-up at Euro 2024.

And he admits that leaving the 32-year-old on the bench for the majority of last season’s final stretch was one of the most difficult decisions he had to make during his three months in charge.

Ferguson said: “Look, first and foremost, I was at the game last Tuesday and I thought Jack was immense with some of the saves he pulled off.

“But if I take you back to that, it was probably one of the hardest decisions I had to make. And it wasn’t knee-jerk.

“I took a couple of days to think about it, and I just felt compelled to make the change because Jack was going through a difficult time, as every professional footballer does – you go through tough times in your career. “I just felt it was the right time to take him out of the firing line for a few weeks.

Kells, or Liam Kelly, came in as another excellent custodian and performed admirably for me.

“But, if I go back to that time, I have to think first and foremost about Jack Butland as a person – how will he react? I had to be completely honest with him.

“I had a tough 20-minute conversation with him. I have to be honest with you. “He was sore.” But one thing I can say about Jack is that he understands why I did it.

“Obviously, I made the decision to bring Liam in, and one thing I’ll say about Jack Butland is, if you recall the Bilbao game, Kells saved the penalty, and who was the first to congratulate him when the whistle blew?

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