When it comes to confirmation bias, that tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with what you already believe to be the case, then when it comes to the signing of Joe Hart, I have to hold my hands up and say such bias is something I was certainly guilty of.
My own impressions of Celtic’s new goalkeeper were of a man heading to Celtic looking for a last payday, someone winding down his career and happy to collect a few quid along the way, and one who had having been informed he was surplus to requirements at Man City under Pep Guardiola seemed to me to have been found out as goalkeeping revolutionised itself to add more and more outfield responsibility to their repertoire.
Spells at Torino, West Ham, Burnley and recently as at best a back-up to Hugo Lloris at Spurs simply confounded my beliefs, this was not a goalkeeper for Celtic.
The inherent bias in my assessment of the man went further still, Billy Big-time was the perception I’d gathered on Hart along the way, in a season where team spirit was going to have to be rebuilt and in a changing room at Celtic that seemed to have cliques and division already, I couldn’t see much of that improving by adding my perceived notion of Joe Hart to the ranks.
More recently when new Spurs boss Nuno Espirito Santo appeared to indicate Hart had no chance of football in North London, I thought of shampoo ads and shaving endorsements and believed a few years of believing his hype had caught up with the player, as such I was far from convinced when Celtic made their move.
Since then, I have to hold my hands up and say I was wrong on Joe Hart and I’m certain there are a great deal of Celtic fans thinking the same.
I was concerned such was the lack of strength in our goalkeeping ranks, and the fact none of Barkas, Bain or Hazard, despite all being given ample opportunities to shine, had convinced consistently that Celtic were getting desperate and Hart, we were now going to hope, would at least perform better than what we had and stop shots occasionally. I felt Celtic needed more than that and in truth we are getting more than that already from Joe Hart.
I was also far from convinced Postecoglou wanted Hart given our previous propensity to foist unwanted players on previous managers. Yet in a Daily Mail interview with former teammate Micah Richards it certainly appears Postecoglou wanted Joe Hart and called him personally to encourage the player:
“I didn’t know what was next, it was going to have to be something to interest me. Spurs let people know I was available — I spoke to (Celtic manager) Ange Postecoglou. I told him how I was feeling, how I was happy to go and play on a park because I don’t need this any more. I said you can take this as me being vulnerable, I just need a bit of love.
“I’ll be there with you, all or nothing. He said to me: ‘I do my research. I’ve not needed to do one bit of research on you as a goalkeeper, as I don’t need to.’ That made me feel good, first and foremost. He told me he had spoken to people I had played with in the past and people in the game — just about you. To come and do the job I want from you, I just needed to know about you as a person”.
Joe Hart Photo/Radek Petrasek CTK Photo
Since arriving at Celtic Hart has made the important saves you’d expect from a goalkeeper of his standing but more than that he has added leadership on the field and assisted a new captain in Callum McGregor who will be glad of the help.
Most teams have a leadership group alongside a captain yet at Celtic you would have been hard pushed to name the four or five players that would consist of, Hart it appears has stepped in and stepped up in that regard. He seems vocal with his backline as you’d expect but he also seems involved throughout the team and with both a young and a new squad that could be invaluable.
Yet the one moment that changed my mind on Joe Hart came on Thursday night against Alkmaar and again confirmation bias played a part. My overriding concern on Joe Hart was his ability with the ball at his feet. When Hart inexplicably froze and gifted Alkmaar their equaliser, I thought back to Guardiola and his reasoning, and when Hart then had ten minutes of losing his bearings, punting long balls and inviting pressure on his defence I worried his confidence would burst like a balloon.
Instead, he regrouped, commanded his area, produced big saves and even got back to taking the ball to feet. There was no fear, no long-term reaction to the loss of the goal, instead he stood up like a leader and soon that returning confidence transferred to a defence who to man grew with a fine second half performance.
I’m not sure a single player has altered my view of a player in such a short period of time. Yes, Hart still has improvements to make, particularly in a system where the defensive line is so high, sweeping skills are essential, but considering Hart has been starved of regular football rustiness can be forgiven, and you simply know Joe Hart will be working every day to get sharper and improve weaknesses in his game, and really that is all you can ask.
But it is clear when it comes to the intangibles, the strengths that don’t necessarily show up on the statistical analysis of players that Joe Hart brings a great deal to this Celtic squad and plenty we’ve been missing for some 18 months now. It’s certainly been enough for me to reconsider my position and try and leave pre-conceived notions of players to one side and to judge their merits in a Celtic shirt alone. At least I hope it has, that’s the trouble with confirmation bias, it’s kind of hard to shake.
Niall J
Anyone who dismissed a guy still only 34 and who has had over 70 caps for his international side, and who kept Fraser Forster out the side, simply does not know their stuff and is not worth listening to. Same kind of people likely said that Postecoglou was a chump without ever having looked at his CV, and that Neil Lennon was not a Celtic man because of one single bad season where other aspects were also at play. Go back further and they’d have been repeating the hun media lie that Gordon Strachan wasn’t “Celtic minded.” Utter claptrap at all times. These websites are full of know-it-all nobodies trying to fleece a buck and scrape relevance. Personally I tend to listen to the players and managers involved and use my own critical eye to work things out. In doing so it leaves little, if any, place for these bloggers to infect the narrative.
Well said RED SCOTLAND, learned a long long time ago to judge managers by results after a settling in period and players by their skill and endeavour on the park. There are too many internet warriors with preconceived views usually coloured by the mass media that they say they despise.