Aidy balked
REPORTS FORMER England keeper Paul Robinson believes Joe Hart’s move to Torino was a masterstroke that has restored his stock.
The on-loan Manchester City goalkeeper committed two howlers in last Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Inter Milan.
He allowed Geoffrey Kondogbia’s tame shot to slide through his hands and under his body for the first Inter goal and was flapping at air instead of intercepting the cross that led to Antonio Candreva’s late equaliser.
However, in England the story made just three paragraphs of a Sunday newspaper’s European round-up and was a single paragraph in one Monday morning paper’s numbers column.
It comes a month after Hart was made a fool of by casual water on the pitch against Empoli and it is now 12 games for club and country since he kept a clean sheet.
The last time Hart enjoyed such a miserable run was as an 18-year-old for Shrewsbury in League Two.
But the fact that this has all gone largely under the radar means he will captain England against Lithuania tomorrow at the same time as being touted as the answer to a number of Premier League sides’ goalkeeping problems, including Liverpool and Arsenal. “I could not have given him better advice than to go to Torino for a year,” said Robinson. “It is the best thing he could have done: take himself completely out of the firing line, go and play his football and come back in a year’s time a completely new man.
“Steve McClaren did the same – left for a year and restored his stock in Holland. When Joe left, his stock was nowhere near where it should be, but he is going to come back a highly regarded goalkeeper and a much-wanted commodity.
“There are a lot of clubs in the Premier League who will be fighting for a goalkeeper of Joe’s ability.”
Robinson’s own international career was not helped by constant repetition of blunders such as the miskick against Croatia that gave away a goal.
But Hart insists he is not using Serie A as a refuge and that he has ENGLAND SLOVENIA SLOVAKIA LITHUANIA SCOTLAND MALTA P W D L 4 4 4 2 2 1 2 0 0 2 2 1 0 4 4 7 5 A PTS 2 2 7 8 6 5 always refused to let the media spotlight distract him from his game.
“If you want it to be thrown back in your face, it can be,” Hart said. “But I try to manage my career and games on a level.
“If I had ridden the waves of the media or what people’s opinions were, I would be a wreck – you are up, you are down; you are up, you are down.
“I have grown into the role. In the position I am in, even at Sunday League level, if you let your performance at the weekend dictate your whole week and your whole life, you are going to have problems.
“One day you are going to be far too overconfident and the next you are not going to want to make eye contact with anyone. I know how I play and my position in games and what I need to be doing.
“I am human and sometimes it doesn’t go perfectly but it is not through lack of effort. I am going to dust myself off and do my best for the rest of the game.”
Similarly, Hart refuses to be influenced by speculation over his future.
It seems pretty clear that as long as Pep Guardiola holds the reins at Manchester City he will not be welcome back at the Etihad.
He could return to the Premier League but says it would “not be a catastrophe” if he stays in Italy.
“It’s tough because I cannot answer that question like I have got a host of things to choose from – I don’t,” said Hart. “I want to finish the season well and I want to make the squads for the England internationals. Then after that, something has got to give.”
And that is why the dolce vita in Italy suits Hart so well. Life is lived for the moment: there is no dwelling on anything, mistakes or even, for that matter, Wayne Rooney, a notable absentee from the England squad this week.
“Whoever is fit and available you meet up with,” he said. “Wayne is a huge presence, but football has got this way of happening. If I wasn’t here I don’t think it would make much of a difference. We just keep going.”
Rather than getting stuck in puddles and leaving you horribly stranded, football always moves on. ENGLAND UNDER-21s fell to a 1-0 defeat against Germany last night as Aidy Boothroyd’s side were reminded of the challenge they face to win this summer’s European Championship.
The Young Lions cruised through their group to reach the finals in Poland but they were given a reality check against their German counterparts, who were good value for the friendly win following Nadiem Amiri’s 23rd-minute winner in Wiesbaden.