Preston move for Joe Hart proves Burnley goalkeeper is in decline
Former England ace appears to be on a downward slope after Championship side made enquiry to take him on loan
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JOE HART must be wondering where it has all gone wrong.
Preston, languishing 17th in the Championship, asked Burnley if they could take the former England keeper on loan.
They were rebuffed but the very fact they even thought they had a chance tells you where Hart’s career is right now.
The Championship should be no place for a player with 75 England caps and four Golden Glove awards in his locker.
At 31, he ought to be approaching the peak of his powers, respected the world over and looking forward to another ten years at the top.
Peter Shilton, one of his predecessors in the England side, played in a World Cup semi-final against West Germany at the age of 40.
Hart will most likely be finished in football by then. He is out of the Burnley team already, bombed by Sean Dyche after the 5-1 mauling at Turf Moor against Everton on Boxing Day.
The new year has not been kind. Over the past two and a bit seasons, the former England keeper has tried his luck with Torino, West Ham and Burnley.
Preston, seven points off the relegation places, would have been quite a fall but they might not be the last Championship club to try their luck.
Life in the second tier would be very different for Hart because there was a time when he really believed he was the equal of Bayern Munich’s Manuel Neuer and David De Gea at Manchester United.
He was never anywhere near that class. Hart did not have the commitment, the dedication or the determination to stay at the very top of the sport.
The idea that he can ever recapture the form that helped Manchester City to win two Premier League titles seems fanciful.
He is the fall-guy for Burnley’s terrible form, losing his place to Tom Heaton when things started going wonky at Turf Moor.
At best, he is first-team cover at a Premier League club, warming the bench for the rest of his career as a sort of enhanced version of Richard Wright.
There is an OK keeper in there somewhere, even if his career is in sharp decline. His reputation suffered at Euro 2016, with his bizarre tunnel rants before games becoming a theme of the tournament.
By then he was under the guidance of performance coach Jamie Edwards, turning to the former basketball player because of his success with Gareth Bale and Luke Shaw.
Edwards promises to train the football brain but something, somewhere has gone badly wrong with Hart. Headstrong and not short of self-confidence, Hart always knew best.
Doubts about him had surfaced before the 2014 World Cup, when he astounded young England players with his alcohol consumption at the Lions & Roses dinner at the Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire.
The next morning, just days before they departed for Brazil, Hart trained with England team-mates.
When they flew back to London in disgrace, booted out of the tournament after three group games, Hart was part of the squad’s drinking club over the Atlantic.
Roy Hodgson tolerated him, standing by his keeper when fashionable alternatives were beginning to emerge.
Heaton, along with Sunderland rookie Jordan Pickford, were pushing Hart hard for his place.
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Gareth Southgate shook it all up, with Hart making the final appearance for his country with a clean sheet against Brazil in November 2017. He lost his place for good soon after, left out of England’s 23-man squad for the World Cup in Russia.
Hart admitted it was “hard to take”, with Pickford, Jack Butland and Nick Pope, another Burnley man, all named ahead of him.
It did not stop Dyche signing him, turning to the former England man to start the season at Turf Moor.
His future will probably be elsewhere either in this window or at the end of the season. It is unlikely to be a move upwards.