Of permanent Hart deal
“I would like Hart to stay at Torino, but we know – and the club and him, too – that we can’t buy him,” Sinisa Mihajlovic, the Torino coach, said. “At the most, we can take him on loan for another year, but it depends on what Manchester City want to do and what he wants too. We need a decision quickly so we can plan the future.”
Guardiola’s decision to replace Hart with Claudio Bravo has backfired, with the Chile No1 enduring a calamitous debut season in English football following his £15.4million move from Barcelona. Bravo has conceded seven goals from the past seven shots he has faced in the Premier League, and could be dropped for today’s trip to Southampton.
Guardiola is expected to sign a goalkeeper this summer, with Sunderland’s Jordan Pickford, Ederson of Benfica, and AC Milan’s Gianluigi Donnarumma in the frame.
Guardiola admits City are a long way from being able to compete at the top level of the Champions League. The City manager was in the unusual position of watching the quarter-finals from afar this week, having reached at least the last four in all seven seasons of his top-flight managerial career.
Guardiola, whose side lost to Monaco in the last 16, was asked if his side could compare to the current quarter-finalists. “Not in terms of the quality, in terms of how they play situations,” he said. “We were able to score six goals in two games against Monaco and we are out. It’s about how you handle the situation. For that you need experience.” ’Golo Kanté and Eden Hazard are the season’s two outstanding players – in the year’s best team – but to choose between them requires an intellectual sacrifice.
Go with Kanté and you squeeze out the attacking zest (and physical courage) of Hazard, who is a game-changer, a match-winner. Hazard’s bursts have been the main catalyst for Chelsea in tight games, and his return to form after a miserable campaign last year has been one of the treats of the season. Here comes the ‘but’. Kanté has performed the work of at least two midfielders, anticipating events before they happen, like something out of Steven Spielberg’s He is the pivot in Antonio Conte’s system and the most influential of Chelsea’s players, in the academic sense. Kanté was my pick. But then some part of the brain called out for Hazard. As an aside, Dele Alli (16 goals) is on the young player shortlist, but ought to be on the senior one. iverpool won at Stoke last week, so a victory at West Brom tomorrow would complete a valuable set-piece double for Jürgen Klopp’s side, who have continued to be bamboozled facing set-plays.
At the other end, a remarkable stat is that Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino have been directly involved in 31 of the side’s 68 goals this season. Liverpool’s most dangerous players have been drawn from Scotland (Kenny Dalglish), Wales (Ian Rush), England (Michael Owen, John Barnes, Robbie Fowler, Steven Gerrard) and Spain (Fernando Torres), but now the creativity unit is Brazilian. They just need a bit more David Luiz at the back (an unlikely sentence, prior to this season).