Making Sense of Guardiola's Decision to Drop Joe Hart

After a fairly pedestrian 2-1 win over Sunderland on Saturday, the Guardiolafication of Manchester City goes on. Other than the use of the two full-backs to push into central midfield when in possession, and the deployment of Aleksandr Kolarov as a centre-back, the most striking aspect of the side sent out by Guardiola for his first Premier League game was the absence of Joe Hart. It came as no surprise when City were strongly linked on Sunday with a move for Barcelona’s Chile international goalkeeper, with reports in Spain suggesting personal terms have been agreed. 

Although Hart had a poor summer, twice allowing shots low to his left to squirm through him at the Euros, the bigger issue for Guardiola seems to be his ability to pass the ball, operate as a sweeper keeper and initiate attacks from the back. 

But just how bad is Hart with his feet? Last season his pass completion rate in the Premier League was 52.6%, That sounds terrible - finding his man only just over half the time, although it should be born in mind that that figure includes clattering the ball forward under pressure. It Premier League terms it isn’t to bad: seventh best of goalkeepers, in fact last season, behind Simon Mignolet (60.1%), Petr Cech, Tim Howard, Lukasz Fabianksi, David De Gea and Artur Boruc. 

For a goalkeeper in England, then, Hart’s figures are reasonably good. But Guardiola demands rather more. Last season, at Bayern Munich, Manuel Neuer’s pass completion rate was 80.8%. That was the best in the league, but even the second best, Diego Benaglio of Wolfsburg, was up at 77.2%. In fact eight other goalkeepers in the Bundesliga had a better pass completion rate than Mignolet. Bravo was the best in Spain and Europe’s top five leagues with a remarkable 84.2%, followed by Juan Carlos of Rayo Vallecano, who completed 64.6%, with Keylor Navas third at 63.4%. 

So why are Premier League goalkeepers so bad at passing? Perhaps the pace of the game in England means that they’re placed under pressure quicker. That, in turn, perhaps influences the length of pass played - and that is perhaps the biggest single explanation for the great disparity in passing statistics for goalkeepers. Of Bravo’s passes last season, 31.7% were long. 34% of Neuer’s were, while an astonishing 72.1% of Hart’s were. 

Not that that entirely exculpates Hart. His accuracy with long passes is much poorer than either Bravo or Hart. 52% of Bravo’s long passes found their target, 47% of Neuer’s did, but just 35% of Hart’s did. Again, perhaps, context is needed: it may be the case that Bravo and Neuer were under less pressure. 

Either way, though, the point is that Guardiola has gone from a keeper who completed over 80% of his passes last season to one who barely completed half. Under Guardiola at Barcelona, Victor Valdes always averaged between 75 and 78% pass completion. In that regard, it’s entirely reasonable that Guardiola should seek a player closer to his template of what a goalkeeper should be. 

Whether Willy Caballero is that player is another question, but his stats are intriguing for the light they shine on other issues. Against a Sunderland side that applied little pressure high up the pitch, Caballero completed 80% of passes - albeit with one early misplaced ball that presented possession to Duncan Watmore. Although the sample size is small, his two seasons at City have ended in pass-completion rates of 52.9% and 62.6%. At Malaga, meanwhile, in the season before moving to Manchester, he got as high as 62.1%, which offers some support to the theory that the environment of La Liga encourages a higher pass-completion than the Premier League. 

It also suggests that Guardiola was right, that Caballero is better with his feet than Hart, and if his is to play the high line he favours, that is essential. Bravo, though, is in another league altogether.

Was Guardiola right to axe Joe Hart at the weekend? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below