As hinted earlier, Rangers’ star goalkeeper Jack Butland is painfully close to the big England recall he’s hoping for.

Despite being a little coy and trying to play it down a tad, the former number one for the Three Lions is absolutely desperate to go to Germany, and national manager Gareth Southgate and his goalkeeping staff have confirmed Butland is very, very much on their radar.

We’ve discussed the England goalkeeping situation before – it’s absolutely horrendous, with Jordan Pickford managing to hold the jersey despite just being a ‘good’ goalie and little more.

The deputies are a great big pile of average, and none of them are in the vintage form that Rangers’ number one is.

The snobbery angle of England not looking at the Scottish Premiership just isn’t valid here – it was easy to dismiss Southgate and co as being snobbish when, back in the day, they’d ignore Ryan Kent, James Tavernier and Connor Goldson, but the harsh reality is none of these come close to being good enough for the Premier League never mind the national team.

But Butland is. He is a Premier League-level goalie, who was given a raw deal by a number of clubs who seemed unwilling to use him.

Rangers took advantage of that and now we have a PL-standard stopper who is finally being given the chance to shine.

And he has shone. Domestically, yes, but that doesn’t matter to Southgate. But what he does in Europe does, and he’s shone there too.

See, players excelling against Hearts and St Mirren carries no weight in England, nor should it – that’s borderline Vanorama and League One level.

It only spikes up once Rangers face Celtic, and European competition – that’s the level Southgate wants to see.

And Butland has certainly shone there too. Particularly v Euro opponents.

So yes, Southgate is looking at Butland, and given the poverty of choices England have in that position, the ex-Stoke man has a very, very strong chance of selection.

There is of course the knock-on effect – if he does get the call while playing for Rangers, it will pretty much extinguish any need for him to leave for the PL in order to get the England call.

Rangers would hold onto him, as one of the biggest clubs in the UK, and he’d be winning trophies, as he already is.

A win win all-round.