MAN UTD v WEST HAM A dagger through the Hart
JOE HART has taken a veiled swipe at Pep Guardiola by claiming the only opinions he is bothered about are those of Slaven Bilic and Gareth Southgate. Ahead of his West Ham debut against Manchester United today, Hart was asked if he had a point to prove to the Spaniard after being sent out on loan from Manchester City for a second time. The 30-year-old (below) said: “I’m trying to make a point to Slaven Bilic, he’s my coach at West Ham. “I’m trying to make my point to the England boss Gareth Southgate. “They’re my coaches, they’re the people whose opinions I care about.” Guardiola’s decision to get rid of Hart last summer, amid claims that he wanted a keeper who could play the ball out with his feet, looked questionable at the time. And even more so when it became clear to most that Chile No.1 Claudio Bravo was nowhere near as good a shotstopper as the man he had been brought in to replace. This summer, City have splashed out another £35million on Brazilian Ederson with Hart, who spent last season in Italy at Torino, joining the Hammers in a bid to resurrect his career in the Premier League. Hart added: “I can adapt to whatever my manager wants. “I felt like I could do what Torino boss Sinisa Mihajlovic asked me to do and at the moment I feel capable of doing what Slaven asks me to do. The same when I’ve been with England and any manager I have played under. “I’ll always ask what is required of me and do it to the best of my ability.” Hart is not troubling himself with what has been going on between the posts at City since he was dumped. He said: “That’s their problem – I need to look after myself, I need to be selfish. “My feelings for Manchester City will never change, I’m eternally grateful to them as a football club. “They signed me as a boy of 19 from Shrewsbury, took something of a punt on me, and I’ve had some fantastic times there and built some great relationships. “The City fans have been sosupportive of me, even in the last year, and that’s something which will never die with me. “But as far as the business side of it goes and new managers, new opinions, that is football. “You can either moan about it and make smart comments and try to work out why it was done, or you can just get on with it. I’ve taken the latter course.” As one of the men who did so much to turn the ‘noisy neighbours’ into a real force to be reckoned with in Manchester, Hart knows he will not be welcomed with open arms at Old Trafford. He said: “I’m probably going to get a similar reception to the one I usually get there. But it’s business, I want to go there and I want to win.That’s all I want to do whichever side of Manchester it is.”