Torino president Urbano Cairo: 'We didn’t expect so many Joe Hart mistakes'
Updated 13/05/2017 at 14:09 GMT
Torino President Urbano Cairo admits he “didn’t expect so many mistakes from Joe Hart," but has acknowledged that the England stopper "did some good things too.”
Hart arrived on loan from Manchester City in the summer, but has struggled to meet the high standard of goalkeeping in Serie A.
“Hart made a few mistakes, especially when coming out for the ball,” Cairo said. “He is an important goalkeeper. We probably didn’t expect so many mistakes from an England international… but he did some good things, too.”
The future of Hart remains in doubt going into the summer, but Torino are far more preoccupied with whether star striker Belotti will remain or leave.
“I have not received any requests for Belotti," Cairo said of his star player, whose €100m release clause is valid only for clubs outside of Italy. "There are certainly many scouts observing Torino games, and I imagine Belotti, both Italian and foreign.
“I said many times, if Belotti stays for another year, he’ll be doing a great thing for himself and for us. Next year he could consolidate his status, score maybe 30 goals and get to the World Cup.
“Andrea is a humble lad who wants to learn, so we’ve got a great rapport. I think this has been a good campaign, but there are regrets seeing some of the teams ahead of us slowing down now. We could’ve challenged for Europe, but in any case, we scored 65 goals, launched promising young players and Sinisa Mihajlovic built a good team.
“We chose this strategy of focusing on young players when Giampiero Ventura was the Coach and we’re continuing it with Mihajlovic. Lyanco will be with us next season and he was tracked by Juventus and Atletico Madrid.”
OUR VIEW
Belotti will almost certainly move on this summer - he's been too good for Europe's biggest clubs to ignore.
But Joe Hart is a different matter entirely.
The only positive for Hart after a disastrous season is that he's had it away from the eyes of the English media and football public. But it's been an error-strewn campaign and Hart will not have done remotely enough to convince Pep Guardiola that he's worthy of a Manchester City place next season.
The fact that Hart survived his nightmare European Championship with his England place intact was a bit of a surprise, but he'll do well to hold on to that No. 1 jersey if his displays continue to deteriorate at the current rate.
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