Joe Hart should be held to blame for last night

Naaaw poor Joe Hart. He looked like he wanted to cry last night during his post-match interview with ITV. As I’m sure most of you will know; Manchester City came ever so close to becoming just the second British team to defeat Real Madrid at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, Thierry Henry’s solitary strike in 2006 enough to separate Arsenal and Los Blancos that evening.

However, despite the best efforts of Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov, Marcelo, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo had other ideas, the trio netting for Real in the 3-2 win. Many have laid the blame solely at Hart’s feet, while others are pointing the finger at captain Vincent Kompany, the Belgian defender ducking out of the way of Ronaldo’s strike late on.

Yet, it never should have got as far as Ronaldo receiving the ball on the left, facing down to Pablo Zabaleta. In the build-up to one of Madrid’s relentless attacks, Marcelo found himself charging through on goal. He took a heavy touch and was encountered by Hart, seemingly going nowhere.

The England number one had the chance to smother the ball, waste some valuable seconds and prevent another Real attack. However, instead of going in with his hands, Hart opted to go to ground with his legs and ‘starfish’, Peter Schmeichel style. City managed to clear the ball, albeit temporarily, before the aforementioned goal occurred.

Many will debate that Hart was at fault for the goal or that Kompany shouldn’t have ducked to allow the ball to fizz under his goalkeeper. Heck, others will even go as far as to criticise Zabaleta for being turned too easily by Ronaldo. But, the goal could’ve been prevented earlier had the City shotstopper smothered the ball at the feet of Marcelo rather than perform his best Schmeichel impression when City needed to waste time to secure a vital point.