The 29-year-old was dropped by Guardiola for City’s opening three games of the campaign because of the head coach’s belief that the 29-year-old is not accomplished enough with his feet.
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“It’s a place I love to be”, he added, “but situations occur in football”. We’re men and we get on with it.
A picture of Hart had been removed from the stadium’s exterior wall prior to the game as part of a visual facelift, but City’s fans made it clear they were unhappy about his treatment by Guardiola.
– Indeed, it is only eclipsed by Borussia Mönchengladbach’s 9-2 aggregate win against Young Boys achieved on Wednesday.
Cillessen made a farewell appearance for Ajax on Wednesday in their 4-1 Champions League play-off defeat to Rostov in Russian Federation. FC Copenhagen is back in the group stage for the second time in four years, after scoring an 86th-minute equalizer to draw 1-1 with APOEL and progress 2-1 on aggregate. The Croatian team equalized in the 87th minute through Junior Fernandes to take the match to extra time before El Arabi Hilal Soudani grabbed the victor in the 95th minute.
Barcelona have completed the signing of Dutch global goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen from Ajax, the Spanish champions confirmed on Thursday.
City controlled the game, but although Iheanacho, Nolito and Delph all hit the target in the first half, none of them came close to troubling Steaua goalkeeper Valentin Cojocaru.
Fabian Delph scored the only goal of the night, finishing off a lovely team move with a well placed header from Jesus Navas’ cross.
Although the night was somewhat spoiled by Kelechi Iheanacho pulling up after chasing a ball into the box with what looked to be a serious injury.
But the home fans had other preoccupations and after a chant of “Stand up if you love Joe Hart!” had drawn nearly everyone in the ground to their feet, his first save, from Adrian Popa, prompted a huge cheer.
With the tie as good as won, Hart’s recall was one of a number of changes by Guardiola, who also brought back Yaya Toure.
Speaking afterward, Hart said: “We have a top manager that the club has wanted a long, long time, and he’s going to have his opinion on things”.
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– Joe Hart completed all of his 16 passes against Steaua Bucharest, the only starting player to have a 100 per cent passing accuracy.
