England manager Roy Hodgson says that despite Manuel Pellegrini dropping Joe Hart the Manchester City goalkeeper is still the country’s finest.
Hodgson said that although he was duty bound to look at other goalkeepers Hart did not deserved to be replaced in the national side.
Speaking ahead of England’s next match against Chile in a week’s time Hodgson will start the 26-year-old in one of the two upcoming games.
“Joe will definitely start one of the games because he’s our No.1 goalkeeper and it’s very important, I think, to show faith in him,” Hodgson told a press conference.
“If I also show a lack of faith in him, which I think he would regard as very undeserving after what he has done for England, it would definitely affect his confidence negatively,”
“I never had any intention of doing that and, although I haven’t spoken to Manuel yet, I would think he expects me to play Joe because I’m sure that he hasn’t lost faith in him as a goalkeeper either.”
Hodgson, who steered England to World Cup qualification for the 2014 competition, praised the City shot-stopper for his performances in those matches and said that different factors may have forced City manager Pellegrini to drop Hart.
“Sometimes, as a club manager, you are put under pressure to make a decision, but I’m not convinced he has written off Joe Hart in any way. Maybe he thought that withdrawing him from the firing line might be a good thing,” he continued.
“Unfortunately I can’t withdraw him from the firing line. He’ll play for England. He’ll be in the firing line there, with regard to people judging his performances, but he was very much like that in the last two games against Montenegro and Poland and he came out of them with flying colours.”
Despite acknowledging that the Shrewsbury-born player had made mistakes, which Hodgson suggested could be down to City dominating possession during games meaning Hart is not tested often enough, the former Fulham boss would only be worried if Hart was not back starting in the New Year.
“I would be a lot more concerned if Joe never gets his place back in the team and in the spring of next year, as we are building up to the [World Cup] selection, he was a constant reserve, never getting a game.
“That would bother me. I will cross that bridge when I come to it, but I firmly believe Joe is such a good goalkeeper he will get back into the City team sooner or later.”
Image courtesy of ITV Sport via YouTube, with thanks.
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