Hart: I would have picked Richards

Joe Hart is surprised Manchester City colleague Micah Richards was left out of the squad for England’s friendlies against Spain and Sweden.

If it was up to Hart, in-form full-back Richards would feature in Saturday’s match against world and European champions Spain at Wembley.

But England manager Fabio Capello opted not to call on the 23-year-old, and Hart has backed his team-mate to continue pressing for a spot in the national team.

“Yeah, but it’s not up to me to pick the squad,” Hart said when asked if he would have selected Richards.

“If it was, my friends from school he would be playing it, but it’s not.”

“Micah’s been absolutely fantastic, I think he’s given everything. I’m really proud of how he’s done for Manchester City (and he) captained us against QPR. It’s just unfortunate he’s not in this squad.”

“But I’m sure he won’t take it to heart, he’ll just keep on playing well, like he is, and pushing to be in that squad.”

England have lost to Spain in each of the teams’ last three meetings, but Hart insisted the home side will not be intimidated by Vicente del Bosque’s all-conquering visitors.

“They’re not light-years ahead of us,” Hart said.

“We can’t go in in awe of them, because they’re a team that we’re playing against, we’ve got some fantastic players and so have they.”

“It just makes for a really interesting encounter.”

Phil Jones is a relative newcomer to the international scene, having made his debut against Montenegro in October.

But the Manchester United defender is already targeting victory over Spain, in a bid to lift England’s confidence ahead of Euro 2012 in Poland and the Ukraine.

“It (a win) would be massive,” he said.

“It would be a massive boost for us all going into the Championships knowing that we’ve beaten a really good team on the international stage and hopefully that will spur and kick us on.”

“I think we’re still a fantastic team and we’ve still got a lot of quality in our side and we’re still up there competing with the best.”