Joe Hart - Is he what England need?

Reading through a few of the magazine articles that I'd seen over the last few months on the lead up to the world cup, there were several tongue-in-cheek comments regarding the likelihood of a faultering start from the England team. Perhaps no-one should feel surprised, we should all remind ourselves of the dodgy beginnings of the 1990 world cup against Ireland and the fact that most sides that have gone on to win the tournament have started poorly and improved as a team on the way through the tournament.

Though anyone who has seen Birmingham City play this season would probably agree, I don't know how widely respected Joe Hart, on loan from Manchester City has become, outside of the St Andrew's set up. He's managed to form a solid relationship with the centre backs and other defenders which led to two unusual things to see as a Birmingham City fan. Firstly, there was the longest unbeaten run the in club's history for over a hundred years. Secondly, there was the best defensive record outside of the top three clubs formed because of the ability of Hart to work with his back four. Admittedly, it was a very stable defence and when changes were made they were less effective at keeping clean sheets. It's more a case that the club are out of favour and despite finishing much lower, Portsmouth and West Ham are classed as producing more international class in terms of the players ability.

There was another Birmingham City connection on the TV today was Nikola Zigic, the Serbian forward. I hope he plays a better game before too long...it looks like everyone at St Andrew's will be reliving the Christian Benitez experience of last season - will McLeish be able to get his to shoot on target? Will he be able to get Kevin Phillips to begin his coaching career to get the best from him. I'd love this to happen but really there doesn't look like there will be much in the way of change from last season. Only a few sides looked like they had really sussed how to play against our defence last season, if more do this season coming, then there could be far greater reason to need to see the forward players doing well. If they don't we're looking distinctly bottom half again. I have concerns that the season will shape up like the second season that we had when Steve Bruce had led us to a safe season in the top flight in 02-03 and the following season when the class players who'd been brought in failed to really perform - perhaps McLeish has learnt from this and only brought in a few players that he can see performing. Enric Valles, Michel and Nikola Zigic all playing well up front next season? It could happen...