Articles

Is There A Place For Joe Hart In The Next Evolution Of This Celtic Team?

|
Image for Is There A Place For Joe Hart In The Next Evolution Of This Celtic Team?

A football manager doing his job right makes a club into an ever-evolving thing, something that is always either in a phase of transition or is still waiting to find out what the results of the previous one were. This Celtic team is 18 months old. It is still evolving.

Evolution is a rough process. Darwin’s theory has often been called “the survival of the fittest” but in fact this is a misunderstanding of what natural selection means. He meant that the species best able to adapt to changing conditions survives … this wasn’t about being the strongest or fastest but the result of a combination of different factors.

So it is with a good manager’s transformation of his club.

There are few who could properly comprehend it when Alex Ferguson sold the engines of his first great Manchester United side; they marvelled that he would let Ince, Kanchelskis and Hughes all leave without “replacing” them, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He promoted the Neville’s, Beckham, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes from the youth team and in spite of being told by Alan Hansen “you don’t win anything with kids” he went on to secure a double.

This is one of the reasons Ange told us he doesn’t fall in love with players. Not only because they might move on, but because he might well want to move them on. I’ve been thinking a bit today about what I wrote earlier about Juranovic and Giakoumakis, and I’ll follow that up tomorrow with something, but maybe in some small way they don’t fit his larger plan.

There are other players who will not fit the larger plan.

The one I want to talk about in this piece is Joe Hart. There’s an accepted football wisdom that all great teams are built from the back. Certainly, I can’t remember one that didn’t have a top player between the sticks.

We signed Joe Hart at a time when we needed a high quality keeper with top level experience who had been over the course and won trophies. Hart was an outstanding solution to a difficult problem. At the time. But as this team evolves, is that still the case?

Has Joe Hart done it to the level that’s required? Or are his occasional errors becoming difficult to ignore? I’m sure he’s on good money at Celtic and so we can’t just cut him loose. But should we be looking to give him some competition for his place, the better to cut out some of those daft mistakes he is prone to making?

It’s clear that in spite of being talented that Siegrist has failed to emerge as a proper challenger. Ange would have seen enough before now to consider giving him a run.

Hart hasn’t been terrible, but there are goals I don’t think a keeper of his experience and former level should ever have let get past him and when he tries to play the ball on the deck I think most of us have a collective heart attack. His mistake at Ibrox, where he almost gifted an otherwise anonymous Morelos a goal, was absolutely scandalous.

And it isn’t the first one of those he has made.

I think Hart is a good keeper but as this side evolves being good simply won’t be good enough. Ange wants to see this team develop beyond what he did in the first transfer window, and Joe Hart is a product of that window, and a time when we were throwing the team together in something of a hurry. Ange will already wonder if he can do better.

You look at the players who have evolved along with this team, like Ralston and Taylor, and guys who have come into Ange’s system and just got it right away, and you ask yourself if Hart has regained his standing as a world class keeper (which he once was) or even just improved in the year and a half he’s been here beyond the guy we signed.

The thing about evolution is that when the environment changes – European football replaces domestic football for example – you’ll see who is capable of moving to the next level and who is not, or no longer can. Ange knows what went wrong in the last Champions League campaign, and he’s already busy trying to put it right.

There are a lot of people in this squad who will not survive his first proper evaluation of where we are compared to where he wants us to be, and some of the names on his “not quite making it” list will be surprising ones for many of us.

Where Joe Hart lies in his thinking could be crucial to the plans that emerge.

Share this article

0 comments

  • Martin says:

    Hart’s on his last season as number 1 at this level. Not through any problems of his, but he is aging out of being at that level. He’s great for the team, an able deputy and coach and we should keep him around. Incidentally Ibrox is having the same problem.

  • jrm63 says:

    I see your thinking. The problem is his general mobility. I think Ange is going to form a triangle of the 2 new Japanese signings and Carter-Vickers in the centre, with the new guys coming all the way forward when faced with a massed defence. That will change the goal keeping question again

  • Jim says:

    Goalkeepers took up goalkeeping because they are good at stopping shots, not at passing. Most of them will mess up occasionally if they are put into high pressure passing situations, for which they do not have the skill set. This is a fault of modern coaching and Hart is not the only one suffering.

    Look at McLaughlin’s clanger against us in the 4-0 game last season.

    Even at the World Cup, keepers were making idiot mistakes because defenders were forcing them to play tiki-taka in their own penalty box while opposition players were rushing towards them. If you stop forcing them to do this, the problem goes away. But it is entertaining.

    Apart from being rubbish at something most keepers are rubbish at, Hart is still a good goalkeeper.

    • Woodyiom says:

      Jim – modern keepers are able to control and pass the ball under “reasonable pressure” – Ederson and Allison being two clear examples. Whilst I agree all mess up occasionally due to being closed down, Harts mess ups come from him taking an absolute age in deciding whether to pass or clear and in standing waiting for the ball to come to him inside the 6yard box (whilst the attacker simultaneously rushes towards him) rather than him moving towards the ball which would give him more time to execute his decision AND would result in the ball being much further from goal when an attacker does close him down. Nobody expects him to be able to control/dribble/pass the ball like Messi but, after 18months of training under Ange, being able to read danger and/or see and then execute a simple pass to one of our nearby players or launch it if absolutely necessary shouldn’t be beyond him.

  • john mc guire says:

    shot stopper aye is good but i never see him taken command of his box and at well over 6foot plus is he a vampire he seems terrified of crosses ,and i also think Joe got it into his head when he came up from down south he thought am a big ex international with bags of experience that he was going to be the captain of the club pity Joe never thought that we had a player 100% better than him Calmac .

  • Nick66 says:

    Evolution, interesting, but not without its failures. I wonder about Bengi as number 2, should he be given a few games. Hart in mouth occasions would suggest that. Ange does what he does and so far it works. When Joe becomes excess to requirements then that will happen. I would like to see Benji given the Cup games to see what’s there. Otherwise defence is strongest in league, so best left alone maybe.

  • John S says:

    Siegrist needs a run to re-show his reliability.

  • Pcelt says:

    He should be dropped now and give our other keepers game time to see who if any are capable of making the jersey theirs,there have been plenty of players who manager’s said they weren’t great in training but excellent in games.

  • Martin pollock says:

    Think big Joe coming to end of his career. Has done well at Celtic but all good things come to pass ..HailHail..

  • Neil Smith says:

    After the penny pinching lost us Scotland’s best keeper we should be thankful we got Joe and vice versa. He’s been excellent and defo gets it. Yup has the occasional howler but who on the pitch doesn’t?? Just more obvious back there. If anyone thinks we will find a keeper without errors in them good luck. Siegrist well Ange sees him everyday and deems he’s not at the level required or else we would have seen him play. Joe for now for me. But the big man must have a succession plan in his head.

  • JimBhoy says:

    Siegrest should take over number 1 spot next season. Looks like Bain may be on the move too.

    Joe has been OK and I hope he sees his contract out.

    As long as Ange replaces players with better quality then that works our system well for the future.

    On the other side of town the rangers have an ageing squad with many out of contract soon. Gonna take £’s they haven’t got to replace players.

    That CL money is needed to thrive.

  • Eddie c. says:

    Joe’s a great goalie…saved us with some great stops..ok he is a heart stopper every time he gets th ball at his feet…but a great shot stopper..so Joe..keep it simple..let th guys who are good at passin th baw deal with it..you will be number one for years to come(I hope)

Comments are closed.