The curious case of Joe Hart
With Joe Hart set to move to West Ham United, we take a look at why there has been so little interest in his services and whether he should remain England's undisputed, first-choice goalkeeper.
If you had said 18 months ago that Joe Hart would join West Ham, many would have seen it as quite the coup. But in reality, it is just a sign of how the former Birmingham man's stock has dropped in recent years.
At just 30 years of age Hart has plenty of time left in his career, so why has a two-time Premier League champion and 71 cap England international not attracted more interest?
City boss Pep Guardiola claims that Hart is not good enough with his feet, a very modern criticism of a goalkeeper if ever I heard one, whilst the 30-year-old does seem to have an apparent weakness to long-range shots hit low to his left hand side. Onlookers have often commented that Hart often overdoes his attempts to hype himself up before games, leading to agitated performances and a propensity for mistakes.
The stats back this up, over the last two seasons, Hart's save percentage in League games has been just 64%, considerably lower than the likes of Tom Heaton, Jack Butland, Jordan Pickford and Fraser Forster, whilst the City man has also racked up the highest number of mistakes: 6. Meanwhile, Hart's understudies at international level, Tom Heaton and Jack Butland, have made just one mistake between them in 117 appearances.
At international level Hart has also come in for criticism, with many blaming him for goals conceded during last summer's European Championship. Gary Neville also called Hart's goalkeeping "poor" just last month, after he conceded two long-range free-kicks against Scotland.
Whilst, the Chairman of Torino (where Hart spent last year on loan) also suggested that Hart made more mistakes than he expected, given his status as an England International.
Nevertheless, this is the same player who possesses no fewer than 4 Premier League Golden Gloves, the same player who famously produced a series of stunning saves to keep Barcelona at bay at the Camp Nou in 2015 and the same player that Wayne Rooney once descirbed as the best goalkeeper in the world.
The move to West Ham is a great chance for Hart to re-establish himself and prove the doubters wrong.
For so long Hart has been the undisputed England no.1, can he maintain the position now there is genuine competition?