It’s crunch time for England and their squad of hopefuls heading into next summer’s World Cup, where Gareth Southgate’s side will be looking to improve on poor performances at international tournaments in recent years.
The Three Lions failed to get out of the group stage in Brazil three years ago and suffered an embarrassing exit at the hands of minnows Iceland during the European Championships last summer, which led to major changes.
Southgate has replaced the old guard with fresh youngsters but there’s still a number of players in the squad that remain from those disappointments, including West Ham loanee Joe Hart between the sticks.
Hart has struggled in the past 18 months after being ousted from Manchester City by Pep Guardiola, spending last season on-loan with Torino before moving to the Hammers this summer- and leaving a lot to be desired since.
His performances have attracted a lot of critics and one of those is England legend Gordon Banks, who believes Hart should be dropped after making ‘terrible mistakes’. Speaking to the BBC, the World Cup winner said:
“I see him make terrible mistakes, lots of times he is lucky they don’t score.”
“I think Jack Butland is a really good goalkeeper. He’s been unlucky that he had that injury and broke his finger, because I am sure he was going to be playing in at least one of those friendlies.”
“If he gets a chance in these next two friendlies and plays well, I think he will look to play him (at the World Cup),”
Being dropped from England’s first-choice line-up will be a huge blow for Hart and he needs to improve if he’s to stop that from happening.
