Joe Hart or Shay Given? That sums up England’s problem.

The problem of overseas players blocking the chances of young English players playing at the top level and then going on to make decent international players is best shown in the goalkeeping department.

Remarkable

For a long time it looked as though Ben Foster, then of Manchester United, was going to be England’s number one. He did remarkable things in goal at Watford on loan in the Premier League and gained international recognition. After his loan spell he went back to United and sat on the bench behind Edwin van der Saar in the pecking order.

When he did finally get his chance he blew it and before long found himself behind Tomasz Kuszcak as well. Foster needed to go on loan somewhere else to get regular first team football but it didn’t happen. Now he has been signed by Birmingham and we all hope that he can recapture his Watford form and show just how good he can be.

Spell

The reason there is a vacancy at Birmingham is because they have had to send back Joe Hart to Manchester City after his loan spell at the club last season.

Hart impressed so much at Birmingham last season that he was voted best goalkeeper in the league by his fellow professionals and earned a place in Fabio Capello’s England squad. Albeit behind the hapless Robert Green and the wayward David James.

Finest

Hart is expected to be the goalkeeper that Capello selects for England’s game against Hungary on 11th August, but he doesn’t yet know whether he will be playing first team football at his club. Last season’s keeper Shay Given is one of the finest keepers around and Hart will find it hard to displace him from the side. If he doesn’t, Hart knows he will have to try to move on. He told the BBC,

“All I want is to play in the Man City first team, but if I wasn’t I’d have to reconsider. Sitting on the bench doesn’t interest me. All I want to do is play in the first team. I’ve based my summer around getting in the first team. Shay has recovered from his shoulder injury and we are both fit and raring to go and we both want that place. Whether I am involved with England or not, all I want to do is play. It is so different playing for the reserves. I want to be in the limelight, playing for the first team and at the moment I am working hard to get into Manchester City’s first team.”

Highly

Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini speaks very highly of Joe Hart but isn’t prepared to say whether or not he will be picking him for his team,

“Joe will be first-choice goalkeeper for the next 10 years for England. I don’t know if he will be my first-choice, it depends. I will pick the players who deserve to play.”

Nutshell

There we have the problem in a nutshell. Mancini is a good judge of players and he feels that Hart is the best English keeper and so do many of the players in the Premier League. Despite that, Mancini may well select the Republic of Ireland goalkeeper ahead of him.

There is no other top league in the world whereby a highly rated young goalkeeper is not playing first team football for a team in their top division. Let us not forget that Hart isn’t a teenager, he is twenty-three.

Casillas

Iker Casillas has been Spain’s goalkeeper for ten years and he has been playing his football at the top level with Real Madrid since he was eighteen.

Gianluigi Buffon has been the Italy goalkeeper for thirteen years and he has played at the top level with Parma and Juventus since he was seventeen.

France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris is the same age as Joe Hart and has been playing at the top level with Nice and Lyon since he was eighteen. He has fourteen French caps and made his debut at twenty-one.

Country

England is the only country in the world where their best goalkeeper is likely to be sat on the bench. This has to change if England are going to move forward and Joe Hart is well aware of that.

He will be very keen not to tread the same path as Ben Foster who was earning rave reviews with Watford at the age of twenty-two but is now trying to rebuild his career and re-establish his reputation five years later.