THE PECULIAR PLUMMET OF JOE HART
It is 400 days since the Burnley keeper played in the Premier League. So what went wrong for the former England No 1?
EighTEEN months have passed since Joe hart rang Tom heaton to deliver the bad news. ‘i am signing for your club,’ said hart. heaton was baffled. Both he and Burnley team-mate Nick Pope had suffered injury problems but by the summer of 2018 heaton was fit and expecting to play. Within a week of his arrival, hart had dislodged the club captain in goal.
Earlier this season, heaton, now at Aston Villa, was struck down by another serious injury. it gave Dean Smith and gareth Southgate a headache. Like Burnley, Villa had considered hart, only to choose Pepe Reina instead.
And in the run- up to this summer’s European Championship, there’s a hole in England’s plans, too. Again hart is among the potential alternatives.
Again, though, attention is likely to turn elsewhere.
Anyone who fancies hart to make the England squad can back him at odds as long as 150-1. it’s a staggering price for a keeper who is only 32 and has 75 caps to his name. Birmingham’s Jude Bellingham, 16, is only 100-1.
By now, though, hart is used to life in the cold. For over a year he has been warming the bench at Turf Moor.
Thursday marked 400 days since he featured in the English top flight. Once considered among the world’s best, hart is being left to rot. IN LATE 2004, League Two strugglers Shrewsbury Town were on the hunt for a new manager. Their preferred candidate needed some extra persuasion. So, following his interview, gary Peters stayed to watch the reserves. in goal was the 17-year- old Joe hart. his performance helped Peters make up his mind but the manager was soon faced with a dilemma.
‘The captain of the club was the goalkeeper,’ recalls Peters. ‘One of the first decisions i had to make was to tell him that Joe was going to play.’
Peters was struck by hart’s character as well as his ability. ‘ You’d definitely want your daughter to meet him and marry him,’ he says.
hart could play, too. ‘One of the things Joe was very good at was passing, finding people and coming out with the ball,’ remembers Peters. ‘it was something i had to discourage sometimes!’
The irony is not lost on Peters all these years on. At the time, though, it seemed nothing could halt hart’s progress.
Manchester United and Everton had a look at the teenager. As they dithered, Manchester City snapped him up.
‘Not just ability-wise but in terms of mental strength he’s one of the best i’ve ever seen,’ says Micah Richards, a friend and former team-mate at City.
Chris Woods was Everton’s goalkeeping coach when they let him slip through the net.
‘Joe has an aura about him,’ said Woods in late 2017, while the pair were at West ham. ‘he is a vital member of the team.’
But a day after that glowing endorsement, he played his last Premier League match for nearly four months. The keeper began the season as No 1, only to lose his place following a drubbing by Everton. At Burnley, by the time heaton replaced him, it had become a pattern. On Boxing Day 2018, a 5-1 defeat by the Merseysiders consigned hart to this prolonged period of exile. iT iS easy to pinpoint when hart began tumbling down th the mountain. Pep guardiola’s decision to axe him before the 2016-17 campaign remains the moment around which all else orbits.
‘he’s an incredible player, an incredible leader as well, it’s just unfortunate that obviously when Pep came in, his mind was already made up,’ says Richards. ‘it was hard for me to take as a friend and as a team-mate because he’d never been given the chance.’
The reason why guardiola ditched him was clear — hart wasn’t good enough with his feet. The reasons why he has struggled to recover are less obvious.
‘Confidence can be taken from you when the best manager in the world comes in and says you’re not his type,’ says Peters.
Certainly, guardiola’s status among the principal architects of modern football made the snub more pointed. But the truth is, cracks had long since appeared. Over a few years hart’s shotsaving percentages had fallen, while his error count rose.
his chest-beating, face-reddening antics began to draw ire, too. Especially when followed by mistakes, the like of which marred England’s Euro 2016 campaign. Signs were there.
But hart was still a two-time Premier League winner and England’s No 1. Wayne Rooney once labelled him ‘the best keeper in the world’; Sir Alex Ferguson bemoaned his failure to sign him for £100,000. ‘For him to keep his place for so long just showed the character he has,’ says Richards. Why, then, has hart failed to arrest his slump?
guardiola didn’t strip him of the attributes that took him to the top. And did those concerned about hart’s distribution, or his vulnerability to his left, really believe he would so struggle at Torino, West ham and Burnley?
‘if harty made a mistake t it was blown way out of proportion,’ claims Richards. ‘ Sometimes, and i’ve been there, it c can just become too m much. if people knew the real Joe hart that i know — the caring family man w who would do anything fo for anybody — they wouldn’t be judging him th the way they do.’
hart suggested politics pl played a part when he was l left out of England’s 2018 World Cup squad. ‘i’m a big head to chop off if you want to shake things up,’ he said.
So who or what is to blame for his continued difficulties at Burnley? Last season hart and heaton each played 19 Premier League games.
hart conceded more goals, saved a fewer proportion of shots and heaton’s return coincided with an upturn in Burnley’s fortunes. Scratch below the surface, though, and the statistics suggest heaton was afforded better protection by his team-mates.
After heaton left, Pope reclaimed the No 1 spot. hart’s three appearances this season have come in the cups.
his contract is up this summer and defeat by Norwich in the FA Cup last week could prove his final bow.
if hart does leave, he could head abroad but Richards says: ‘i still believe he can play in the Premier League at the highest level. he still has four or five years ahead of him if he wants them. it’s just about being given that opportunity.’
The problem, Richards insists, is that hart ‘got so big, so quickly’. he adds: ‘All i hear from people is: “he’s finished” or “his time is done now”. But why?’