Home is where the Hart is for ace Phil
FORMER City goalkeeper Joe Hart has backed the decision of Pep Guardiola to keep Phil Foden at the club, rather than send him out on loan.
Hart made over 300 appearances during his time at the Blues and is better equipped than most to discuss playing away from City on loan.
The former England number one had spells at Blackburn and Birmingham prior to becoming City’s first choice goalkeeper.
While Foden is considered the club’s most promising talent, game time has been limited this season.
There were suggestions he should be loaned out to gain first-team football but Hart feels he should stay at the Etihad.
“I think he’s a special case - he doesn’t need to go out on loan,” he told the Gloved podcast.
“He’s really rated, it’s no joke.
“The players rate him, the manager rates him, but let’s not be stupid, it’s not like he’s going to start week in week out.”
Hart added: “You have to be the best of the best and he could potentially be.
“He’s only going to get better doing what he’s doing.
“Imagine if he has a bad loan somewhere?
“He needs to be looked after.” CLUB record signing Rodri has explained how his role at City differs to his job at Atletico Madrid and he has credited manager Pep Guardiola for instilling in him a willingness to learn a new way of playing.
The Spain international was identified as the natural successor to Fernandinho in the engine room and City forked out £63million to prise him from the Wanda Metropolitano.
Rodri has made an impressive start to life in the Premier League, slotting seamlessly into City’s midfield and providing the defence with some much needed protection at times due to their injury woes.
Transitioning from Simeone’s pragmatic style of play to Guardiola’s attacking mindset was always going to be a challenge but Rodri looks at the new way of playing as a personal challenge.
“A player has to go through stages,” he told El Pais. “In all the teams I’ve been going through I felt it was the place I had to be. Now at City, I have a totally different role. I have never had such an important role in such a key position in that team as the midfielder. It is different from everything I’ve found. For me, it is a personal and professional challenge.”
The 23-year-old cites the City boss as a key reason behind his willingness to learn the new position and become a key member of City’s star-studded side.
He said: “[Guardiola] instilled in me the desire to learn, to understand the game he was proposing and to fully immerse myself in the dynamics of a team that has been winning.
“You learn on the field, I am the player who can least afford to lose his position, and I have to occupy quite a large radius of action.
“It is about knowing how to position oneself, choosing the moments well, because if you choose them badly, they go past and face the central defenders.
“It is an apprenticeship that cost me a little in the first weeks, and that is logical coming from another league and another team.”
The defensive midfielder also