Joe Hart brilliance saves England blushes in scoreless draw at Slovenia
- by Belinda Burton
- in Sport
- — Oct 12, 2016
England interim manager Gareth Southgate says he inherited "a mess" after a goalless draw in Slovenia in 2018 World Cup qualifying.
His next game is a World Cup qualifier against Scotland, followed by a friendly with Spain, as the Football Association searches for a permanent successor.
Hart, 29, who is on loan at Italian side Torino from Manchester City, has struggled recently with two high-profile errors against Wales and Iceland in at Euro 2016.
The 29-year-old produced a string of top saves, topped by somehow pushing a Jasmin Kurtic header onto the crossbar and flicking it away on his way down. We've discussed that and this week his professionalism and his training has been excellent and his manner has been very calm across these two matches.
"Not only the saves he made, but also the way he dealt with the ball at his feet - I thought he showed what a top goalkeeper he is".
His decision to drop skipper and England's all-time leading scorer Wayne Rooney in favour of Eric Dier was hardly a qualified success with the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder nearly gifting Slovenia an early goal.
Scotland are now out to 7/1 to qualify for Russian Federation, while Northern Ireland are 4/1 to get out of Group C after their defeat left them third in the standings behind Germany and Azerbaijan, who picked up a point from a goalless draw in the Czech Republic.
"I can't thank the players and the support team enough for the backing I've had", he told ITV Sport.
"He was that in the two games we had this week".
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"But we have taken over a mess really and had to steady the ship".
"The overall objective is to qualify so long term that could be an important point". That's an area that clearly needs to be better.
"We actually had a few chances ourselves and with a better final ball we should have done more with them", Southgate added.
Slovenia were certainly the better of the two teams, but they share points thanks to a super display from Joe Hart.
Elsewhere on the night, Northern Ireland put up a bold display in Germany to go down 2-0 to the reigning World Cup champions but England's Group F rivals Scotland suffered a 3-0 defeat against Slovakia.
Frustrations boiled over as the match came to a close, with Jesse Lingard reacting angrily to Aljaz Struna in an incident that saw both players booked.
"I'm told it was just he's reacted to someone raising their hands at Marcus [Rashford]", Southgate said.
"There's a danger you get a red card in this sort of game when there's inconsistency in a lot of the decisions, there's even more of a risk".
