There’s a bit of a viral video doing the rounds where Jack Butland ‘answers’ a Rangers fan’s question about his chances of coming to Ibrox, and it’s as useless a ‘clue’ as we’ve ever seen, given it’s patently unclear what Butland actually answers to the question, with only the punter’s own reaction a clue at all.
Some claim the fan’s question, ‘Rangers?’ is greeted by ‘maybe’, others reckon it’s ‘wait and see’ but in truth, it’s so faint that it kind of could be anything.
The exchange is thus:
Fan: “Are you coming to Rangers?”
Butland: “Pardon? (clearly struggling with the Glaswegian twang)”
Fan: “Rangers?”
Butland: “Maybe/wait and see/indecipherable”
Fan: “ohhhhhhhhhh!”
In reality, because Butland didn’t exactly have a mic on him and it was off the cuff, his retort is very hard to make out, despite all the certainly the mainstream media report the story with.
So it doesn’t really offer a clue at all, and only makes the thing more cryptic, which in ways is a lot more fun really – who wants hard answers at this point, the guessing games make silly season even sillier.
Michael Beale has offered no clues either, only accusing the press of a wild goose chase over Butland, admitting he is of interest to the club but then adding a goalie will be announced in 10 days, which is now about a week or so.
So the whole thing is a great big mystery, and the funny thing is if Rangers do announce a goalie in a week and it’s not Butland, it doesn’t in fact mean we’re not signing Butland. Because we still need three goalies, another two as well as McCrorie. McGregor is gone and McLaughlin will be freed.
But either way, it is the fun of transfer season, and we can absolutely say we’d take Butland every day of the week.