The Premier League season is well on its way as an entertaining first game week brought us a thrilling seven-goal encounter at The Emirates and Leicester back to earth with an opening day defeat to newly promoted Hull City. However, one of the biggest talking points of the opening days came when Pep Guardiola produced his team sheet for the first time as Manchester City manager.
The team sheet saw Willy Caballero in goal instead of Joe Hart, who was relegated to the bench for their game against Sunderland, which they eventually won 2-1. However, the story of benching the England international by the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager seems to have grabbed the headlines more than the final scoreline of the game.
Guardiola has publicly said that the England international could yet win his place back in the side. However, according to media reports in England, the Spaniard seemingly has doubts over Hart’s ability to live up to his complex tactical demands from a keeper.
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With media reports also claiming Barcelona Claudio Bravo to have agreed to personal terms for an arrival at The Etihad, Joe Hart's future at the club looks bleak. And may be contemplating a move elsewhere with Everton sniffing around.
Guardiola, however, seemed nonplussed about the happenings in his post-match press conference. He also hoped that this drop would upset him, but he would react to it positively and look to fight for his place.
"I am pretty sure he is not happy," Guardiola said of Hart after he was left out of Saturday's game. "Players when they do not play they are sad, of course, I would not like them to be happy when they don’t play."
"Today he was the first choice," he added. "I don’t know. I don’t know. It was today. Maybe the next game I'll change or maybe not. Today I needed the build-up, to use the goalkeeper to play quicker, to arrive the balls behind the line, and Willy had this quality.
"First of all, he had more time, he arrived on the first day, in the first training session we worked on that. That’s the reason why, nothing else.
"I know Joe’s quality, he’s an amazing goalkeeper, he’s the goalkeeper with the national team, the last years he was so important to win the two Premier Leagues, the cups, and titles, the personality, the character, I know that. But today I have to decide and today I decide in that way."
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The Citizens will not be too happy to see the back of the England international; someone who they can claim to be their own having come through the academy. Hart, who has become a part of Manchester City folklore and a club favourite after leading the club to two Premier League titles, two League Cups and the FA Cup in the last five years might have to look elsewhere to get regular playing time.
