Suffering Hart gets a shot at redemption
STEVEN GERRARD’S one major issue with Rafa Benitez was the fact that the then Liverpool manager did not really do praise. Most of us seek the approval of the boss, after all, and Gerrard said he certainly would have appreciated such approbation from time to time.
Joe Hart appears to be no different, judging by the fact that the reception he received upon arriving in Turin this week to join Torino on loan is said to have put a timely spring back in his step. The beleaguered England goalkeeper felt wanted again, appreciated.
It has been a dreadful few months for Hart, the calamitous errors he made during Euro 2016 compounded by the fact that Pep Guardiola then decided he wanted someone else to keep goal for Manchester City.
After 10 years at the club, during the most successful period in City’s history, Hart suddenly found himself surplus to requirements and pursuing a move to Italy’s Serie A.
The speed of his decline has been brutal, enough to test the mental resolve of any professional player.
As Gregor Robertson, the former footballer now working as a sports writer, put it earlier this week: ‘It can hit you like a shot in the dark. Footballers can be quite an insecure bunch.’
Robertson suggested that rejection can lead to ‘a shift of thinking’, adding: ‘A team game suddenly becomes a solo pursuit.’
A man-manager as astute as Sam Allardyce will be conscious of this, just as he will now realise that he might have little choice but to go into Sunday’s important World Cup qualifier in Slovakia with Hart as his goalkeeper.
This was not necessarily what he had in mind prioror to Fraser Forster suffering an injury during Wednesday’s day’s training session.
Not when Allardyce might ht well have responded to Hart’s howler against Wales by dropping him before he could then commit the error that enabled Iceland to o score their deciisive second goal in that last-16 encounounter in France.
To Hart’s creditedit he accepted he wasas at faultfault, fronting up immediately after the final whistle in Nice and admitting he ‘didn’t perform personally’.
He added: ‘I hold my hands up to that and I apologise for ultimately costing us the game tonight and the tournament.’
He was being far too hard on himself, of course. Plenty of players, never mind the former manager Roy Hodgson, need to share the responsibility of failure in the summer. But to make such an admission, however noble, was also a measure of just how wretched Hart was feeling.
The warmth of Torino and their supporters may go some way to easing that sense of pain but it is from the depths of despair that Hart will have to rise and Allardyce will be acutely aware of that. Not least because the 29-year-old, one Champions League appearance aside, has not had a proper opportunity to rebuild that shattered confidence.
Allardyce knows how critical a game this is this weekend. Not just the most difficult of England’s qualifying campaign but one that may well set the tone for his tenure.
It is sure to make Allardyce more nervous about selecting Hart, which he is now almost certain to do when the only viable alternative is Burnley’s Tom Heaton, a goalkeeper with just one England cap.
There are, however, some positives from which Allardyce can probably take some comfort, even if Hart’s need to leave the England camp for a day to complete his loan move was less than ideal.
Hart’s desire to play first-team football elsewhere rather than sit tight at City is commendable, as is the ambition he has shown in moving to the league of the goalkeeper he idolises — Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon. Torino have also provided him with some sanctuary, an escape from the misery. From seeing his understudy, Willy Caballero, being selected ahead of hhim while Guardiola moved to bring iin Claudio Bravo from Barcelona for £ 17million. From dropping so suddenly from No 1 to No 3. He hhas support, with a performance coach, Jamie Edwards, who is also said to list Gareth Bale and Luke Shaw among his clients.
Yesterday Hart enjoyed a game of golf with close friends, reporting back to St George’s Park along with the rest of the squad last night. Today he will return to England training fairly confident that, for the Slovakia game at least, he remains the first-choice goalkeeper.
The scrutiny will nevertheless be more intense than ever, with the focus on Hart’s distribution as well as what some consider a weakness when diving to his left.
This assessment of Hart’s qualities does seem a little harsh when the consistency he has displayed for large periods of his career has often seen him heralded as one of the finest goalkeepers in the world.
And the dignity he displayed in that statement on Wednesday night after ‘ a difficult few weeks’ is a further measure of the man.
But the challenge now is a considerable one, because Hart perhaps has to prove as much to himself as everyone else that he remains worthy of his place.