Former
England goalkeeper has started three games this season but he is still only 33 and feels he will have to move abroad to get back into the big time
More than 500 days have passed since Joe Hart last played in a
Premier League game and so, on Zoom, he leans forward when I say that the hurt of not being picked must eat away at him. “Yeah, but I embrace that feeling,” he says intently. “I’m glad I feel like that because you need that
fire in you. You almost need that arrogance to think: ‘Why am I not being picked?’ The reason that I’m at the top fighting, or have been at the top, is because that’s in me.” Hart is 33 and he has been playing professional
Football for more than 16 years.
He made his debut for Shrewsbury the day after he turned 17 and since then has won two Premier League titles with
Manchester City, four Golden Gloves and 75 caps for England. After 12 years with City he played for Torino, West Ham and Burnley. But Hart has been in goal for Burnley only three times this season – a Carabao Cup defeat to Sunderland last August and two FA Cup ties, against Peterborough and Norwich, in January. He has been on the bench for all the other games.