Glasgow Rangers head coach Russell Martin has taken plenty of criticism in the opening month of the 2025/26 campaign after a poor start to the season by his side.
The Light Blues are yet to win a match in the Scottish Premiership, drawing for the fourth time in their clash with Celtic last weekend, and failed to qualify for the league phase of the Champions League.
Martin’s team have conceded 17 goals in all competitions already this season, which is simply not good enough, but central defender John Souttar has performed admirably for the most part.
Why John Souttar is still a valuable player for Rangers
Despite all the brand-new signings brought in by the club this summer, the Scotland international remains an integral member of the squad because of his quality and experience.
The 28-year-old centre-back may not be the smoothest operator with the ball at his feet, but his dominant play physically and old-school backs-against-the-wall defending are valuable to the team.
Appearances
24
4
Sofascore ratings
7.28
7.25
Ground duel success rate
74%
60%
Aerial duel success rate
66%
55%
Ball recoveries per game
2.9
5.5
Clearances per game
6.1
3.8
Error led to goal
0
0
As you can see in the table above, Souttar has not made a single error that directly led to a goal since the start of last season in the Premiership, and has won the majority of his duels on the ground and in the air.
Such has been the impressive nature of his defensive work, the former Hearts man now looks like he is worth even more than Jack Butland, who was valued at £15m by the club last year.
Why Souttar is more valuable to Rangers than Butland
In February of last year, Football Insider reported that the Scottish giants valued the former England international at a price of up to £15m ahead of the summer window.
That came as Butland had kept an eye-catching 18 clean sheets in 38 appearances in the Premiership in the 2023/24 campaign, per Transfermarkt.
Unfortunately, his form since the club valued him at £15m has dipped. In the 2024/25 season, the Englishman conceded 2.2 more goals than expected, based on xG, per FotMob, and made four errors that led to shots or goals for the opposition, per Sofascore, in the Premiership.
As you can see in the post above, Butland was also very fortunate not to have a fifth error under his belt for the season, as the referee let him off by giving a very soft foul against Motherwell.
Interim head coach Barry Ferguson even dropped him out of the side to bring Liam Kelly in as the number one at the end of the campaign, but Martin has restored his position as the number one this term.
Butland has conceded 0.71 more goals than expected across four league matches this season, per FotMob, and it remains to be seen if he can recapture the form that once saw him valued at £15m.
At this moment in time, Souttar looks worth more than him with his impressive performances in comparison to the error-prone goalkeeper, whilst the centre-back is also worth more (£3.4m) on Transfermarkt than Butland (£1.3m).
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Given that Rangers did not sign a new goalkeeper to compete with the ex-Stoke star, Martin will be hoping that Butland can get back to his best and prove that he is still a very valuable asset for the Scottish giants to have at their disposal.