Jack Butland's celebration after saving his latest penalty in a Rangers shirt showed a welcome return of confidence - and justifiably so.
The 32-year-old has been in excellent form since Danny Rohl arrived at the club domestically and the stop from Marcus Fraser was remarkably the seventh spot-kick he's saved from the last eight he has faced at the club.
After diving to his right to keep the score at 2-0 on the night Butland's celebration was a far cry from his body language when leaving the pitch recently at Tynecastle.
The 11-time England cap has tended to play in streaks since moving north in the summer of 2023. Butland was excellent during Philippe Clement's first few months in the job, for example, but lost his place under Barry Ferguson after a string of costly errors last season.
Indeed, it was less than a fortnight ago that the No.1 allowed that Lawrence Shankland shot to glaringly sneak in at his near post in a 2-1 defeat against Hearts. Minutes after conceding possession cheaply, which saw Hearts score from a corner, Butland was justifiably blamed for a defeat that seemed to count Rangers out of the title race.
“I’m not sure I’ve conceded a goal like that second one [against Hearts] in my whole career; the scenario of it, the timing of it, the manner of it. This game, especially goalkeeping, has a way of reminding you that you’re human and it’s difficult," he said days after when discussing the error.
“It’s one of those moments you just have to put down as a moment and move on. As hard as the first 24 or 48 hours were, with a lot of thinking about what I could have done differently, the reality is I train for every situation. I train for everything and push myself, and that’s what I got back to this week."
However, strong performances against Motherwell and St Mirren have followed as the gap at the top of the table has been cut to six and the data shows that over the course of Rohl's tenure, Butland's contribution has been impressive.
To determine the effectiveness of a goalkeeper's shot-stopping, we can use a statistic called Goals Saved Above Average (GSAA), defined as: “How many goals did the keeper save/concede versus expectation (post-shot xG faced)? This is representative of how many goals the goalkeeper's saves prevented within a season.”
The data shows us that after a below-average performance at Tynecastle (-0.18GSAA), Butland has responded with two important performances.
Over the course of the last two games at Ibrox, the goalkeeper's saves have been worth 1.47GSAA - or 2.34, including penalties.
Indeed, extend that to Rohl's entire spell at Ibrox in the league and including Butland's two penalty saves in the league, he's been worth over four goals to his team. That includes six clean sheets in 11 matches.
The former Stoke, Crystal Palace and Manchester United goalkeeper is an individual who clearly feels his errors and at times, perhaps emotion weighs too heavily on him.
Butland has looked on top of the world during stretches of his spell at the club, but in other patches, the weight of it has seemed to exist on his shoulders.
Undoubtedly, his quality has been too 'streaky' over the course, with excellent spells followed by some falling right below par. There hasn't been enough equilibrium.
This season, Butland started so strongly in Europe but dipped up and down domestically, perhaps understandably, playing ahead of a creaking defence. That was after a summer where Russell Martin did not hide his intentions to bring in a goalkeeper who would challenge Butland.
Plus, has this patchy form owed to the extent of football Butland has played? We don't tend to think of No.1s as needing a rest and it's true that they aren't running kilometres every few days. However, the demand of 60 games a season is clearly higher than that of a campaign featuring 30 matches.
During the three seasons before Butland came to Rangers, he made only 18 appearances overall. Since, he's managed 135. That's quite a leap, even for someone with his experience.
For the individual and his club the Old Firm fixture on the horizon this weekend is so important. One valid criticism of the Englishman since his move under Michael Beale is that, against Celtic, he hasn't made a positive impact.
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Whether it be the Scottish Cup final error or goals conceded at Parkhead, Butland has not done enough in these fixtures. If he and his manager can leave the East End with a positive result on Saturday, then anything will feel possible in a season that was previously written off. Until that's achieved, it is an if, however.
We've been here before; this run all feels very reminiscent of Clement's early form in Glasgow. Butland was excellent then too, playing behind a solid defence before the wheels came off in the spring.
Will it be a different story this time?
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