Clarets take Hart
Just under a year ago a serious shoulder injury to Tom Heaton saw Burnley bring in former Manchester United and Denmark goalkeeper Anders Lindegaard and one year on, following a similar injury suffered by Nick Pope, Sean Dyche has now signed Manchester City and England keeper Joe Hart.
The 31-year-old Hart has arrived at Turf Moor on an initial two year contract after spending the last two seasons out on loan, firstly at Torino and then, last season, West Ham. He dropped out of favour at the Etihad with the arrival of Pep Guardiola and hasn’t featured for City since a Champions League game against Steaua Bucharest in August 2016.
He hasn’t enjoyed the best of times recently. He lost his place in the England squad for the World Cup with Pope and Heaton both ahead of him, this after a stop-start season with West Ham that saw him play just 19 Premier League games including the two against Burnley. In the first of those at the Turf he got away with bringing down Chris Wood, benefiting from what now appears to be a Premier League rule that we don’t get penalties. At the London Stadium he was badly at fault with our third goal when he spilled a Jόhann Berg Guðmundsson shot that allowed Wood to score his second of the game.
His first ever game against us wasn’t the best either, allowing a Steven Fletcher to go in while playing on loan for Birmingham, but there is no doubt that he is a very good goalkeeper who has twice been a Premier League winner and has won 75 caps for England.
He made his league debut in the then named Conference for Shrewsbury and his Football League debut for the same team in April 2005, keeping a clean sheet against Oxford. His form attracted City and he joined them in a £600,000 transfer in the summer of 2006.
That, until now, has been his only permanent transfer although he had loans with Tranmere and Blackpool before the one mentioned with Birmingham and then the two most recent loans. He’s played 266 Premier League games for City and a total of 422 league games for all his clubs.
His England debut came as a half time substitute against Trinidad & Tobago in 2008 but had to wait almost four years to be named in an England team in a competitive game against Bulgaria at Wembley which ended in a 4-0 win and went on to be first choice goalkeeper in each of the three tournaments prior to the most recent World Cup.
He’s now become the third England international goalkeeper at Burnley and will initially be challenging Heaton, and Lindegaard, for a place in the Burnley team. He will wear squad number 20.
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