The Premier League club are desperately trying to find a new home for the ousted England No.1, but Pep Guardiola will be happy to have found the perfect goalkeeper for his system
While Pep Guardiola has been anxious not to give too much away about the Joe Hart “situation” for the past few weeks, he has been happy to discuss exactly what he does want from a goalkeeper.
On the eve of Wednesday’s Champions League play-off, likely to be Hart’s final game for the club, Guardiola was asked if he could explain, in layman’s terms, why his keepers must be good with their feet. He spoke for almost three minutes – a lifetime in press conference terms.
Because a good build-up helps create chances. A good build-up helps City win the ball back when they lose it. A good build-up “makes everything easier”.
The goalkeeper essentially holds the key to the Guardiola philosophy. The Catalan has spelled it out as well as he possibly can in a second language – that’s if playing Willy Caballero for the first three matches of the season was not clear enough.
It should come as no surprise to anybody by now that Guardiola does not believe Hart can fulfil this most important of roles.
Does new signing Claudio Bravo? You bet he does.

“He has experience, anticipation of situations not in the box, in front of the box,” Pep said on Friday. “He is good in the build-up plays, quick under the posts, he is a good player for us.”
The Chilean ticks all of the boxes. But any City fans still in the Hart camp – and judging by Wednesday night there are still many thousands of them – who believe their man is a better goalkeeper should drop their pretensions.
“He’s a goalkeeper with a lot of experience in Spain, and with the national team,” the City boss added. “He played in Real Sociedad and after two years in Barcelona, and playing important games in the national team, helped his team-mates create something special in Chile.”
Replacing Victor Valdes, the very prototype of a Guardiola keeper, at Barcelona was never going to be easy, but Bravo managed it. Valdes had provided a level of security that may only have been fully appreciated after he had gone, but the Chilean’s smooth transition ensured – in the way Guardiola explained this week – that Barca’s attacking trio of Neymar, Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi could wreak havoc.
But he is not “just a passer”, as some City fans may fear. His saves have got Barca out of a number of scrapes in recent seasons and he was integral as Chile won the Copa America last summer – the first trophy in their history – and then defend it this year.
Bravo will be spared a baptism of fire against West Ham this weekend – although Andy Carroll is not around to extend him the same ‘Welcome to England’ that David De Gea received in his first season in Manchester – but even if there are errors as he adjusts to life in the Premier League, he has demonstrated the temperament to turn things around: he had a shocker in the group stage of this summer’s Copa America but recovered to be named goalkeeper of the tournament.
And while City may have tried to sign Marc-Andre Ter Stegen earlier this summer, it does not mean Bravo is a panic buy.
Bravo worked with Xabier Mancisidor, the Manchester City goalkeeper coach, at Real Sociedad in the past and he will link up with him once again.
“Now, he’s going be lucky again,” Juanma Lillo, one of Guardiola’s close friends, told Sky Sports this week. “He’s going to work with the same goalkeeper coach I signed at Real Sociedad.
“He is the best goalkeeping coach in the world, I have never seen anyone like him.”
Guardiola has established a four-man back-room team that has followed him to Munich and Manchester, but he has been happy to work with the goalkeeping coach already in situ at both clubs. Especially so in the case of Mancisidor, who was brought to the club by Manuel Pellegrini.

“When I came here Txiki [Begiristain, the director of footbal] spoke to me about Xabi, about how good he is,” Guardiola said on Friday. “I spoke with good friends of mine who worked with Xabi Mancisidor before who also told me that he’s a real professional, good, and that’s why we decide, the club decide, I decide, to stay working with him.”
One of those good friends was clearly Lillo, and it appears more and more obvious that Bravo would have been in City’s thinking for months. They may have had to wait until the season has started but they have got their man.
All that now needs to be resolved is Hart’s “situation”, as both goalkeeper and coach have decided to call it. There appear to be two “solutions”. Begiristain said on Thursday that City will try to find Hart a new club, a suggestion that the hierarchy have been taken aback by Guardiola’s ruthlessness.
But there is currently a shortage of options and the other solution, as put forward by Guardiola on Friday, will be far less appealing to the England No.1.
“If all four [goalkeepers] stay here, the best solution is for everybody to be involved in our idea. They are going to be in rotation. So if Joe, Willy and Angus stay then it won’t be the same one who is always on the bench. Maybe they go into rotation to find a solution – the best for us and them.”
Waiting for his chance to be named as first-choice back-up is most likely not what Hart had in mind when he reported for pre-season training. Guardiola finished by pointing out “the situation is not easy right now”, and he is certainly right.
But that is the price to pay for signing a new goalkeeper that fits perfectly into the project. Guardiola clearly feels Bravo is worth the hassle.
culled:GOAL.COM