Hart knocks on England door

By Joe Radford | 5th March 2010

Hart knocks on England door | read this item

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Although not featuring in England’s Wednesday night friendly against Egypt, on-loan Birmingham City goalkeeper Joe Hart has been collecting all the plaudits this season, as his outsanding performances have all but earnt him international recognition.

With Shay Given cementing the number one spot at the City of Manchester Stadium, Hart was allowed to leave on loan for the 2009/10 season, and has relished the opportunity of first team top-flight football. With 25 appearances already to his name this season, Joe Hart has become a firm fans’ favorite at St Andrews in a season where Alex McLeish has managed to prove all doubters wrong and lead his side to 8th in the table, and already securing Premiership football next term.

The prestigious England number one shirt has not had a true occupant under the Fabio Capello regime, with Hart, Rob Green, David James, and Ben Foster all sporting the jersey since Steve McClaren in 2008. Joe Hart has seemingly put the best case forward to be England’s number one come the World Cup this summer, and some say the only thing that is stopping the 22 year old being given the position permanently is a notable lack of experience, with just 129 professional matches to his name, 54 of which were for minnows Shrewsbury Town.

All three goalkeeper positions in Capello’s World Cup squad are currently anyone’s guess, but if Joe Hart can maintain such good form, like he showed in his club’s recent match versus Wigan Athletic (in which he kept his team in it by pulling off a stunning save to deny Hugo Rodellega) he could find himself in South Africa rather than Birmingham in June.