Hart grabs the Golden Glove award

[Mark (Blue Army)]

Joe Hart picked up his second prize in six days when the Barclays Golden Glove award landed in the safest hands in the Premier League.

Club record breaker Hart has kept 17 clean sheets in the League this season to snatch the trophy ahead of former winners Petr Cech and Edwin van der Sar with the last game still to play.

Another shut-out at Bolton on Sunday would give the 24-year-old England keeper 29 clean sheets in all competitions to set a formidable target after surpassing Nicky Weaver's club record 26.

Hart said: "It's a great honour to get this. But it doesn't mean I'm the best goalkeeper in the Premier League - I'm collecting it on behalf of the whole team, because we defend as a team.

"A few of the lads have been keeping tabs on it and they were keener for us to get the club record. It's a surprising number of clean sheets to keep, and you've got to be happy.

"I hadn't realised how well we were doing, but it was brought to my attention and Weavs texted me. He was a legend to me when he was here. I'm pleased he's doing well now at Sheffield Wednesday."

Joe, signed from Shrewsbury five years ago, added: "It's crazy! I've won this and got an FA Cup winner's medal in the space of a few days - there was a time I didn't think I'd win anything!

"I always thought we'd get to this stage,
but thinking it and doing it are two
different things"

"We've still got a massive game on Sunday and hopefully we'll keep another one, score a few goals and finish the season off right. Let's get third and nail the Champions League place.

"This award will have pride of place somewhere in the house - when I've got somewhere to put it! I've got no furniture at the moment, I've just moved."

mcfc.co.uk

[Beefymcfc]

England's, England's Number 1, England's....Number 1.....

Can we get any more trophies before the end of the season; do they do one for CL qualification?

[stevefromdonny]

lets hope he keeps a clean sheet on sunday

[HeyMark]

England's, England's Number 1, England's....Number 1.....

Can we get any more trophies before the end of the season; do they do one for CL qualification?

Carlos will get his golden boot one

[Beefymcfc]

England's, England's Number 1, England's....Number 1.....

Can we get any more trophies before the end of the season; do they do one for CL qualification?

Carlos will get his golden boot one

Depends how he does on Sunday. Let's hope he's not called to give an interview on TalkSport.

[Mike J]

becoming one of my all time city faves. so so lucky to have him.

[PeterParker]

Still, VDS was the choice for the team of the year(?!?!?!?) some weeks ago. Congrats Joe, great season.

[Green & Blue]

Well deserved he has been fantastic this season.

It was a big call by Mancini choosing him over Shay, he's more than repaid Mancini's faith in him.

[Twobob]

Well Done Joe - saved us on many occasions!

And lets not forget the 5 guys infront of him keeping things tight too

[Goaters 103]

Well done to Joe but this can't be right as I keep hearing we are "weak at the back" - even though we have the most clean sheets and 2nd best defensive record, apparently its our weakness.

OR

is that just press utter bollox!

[Ted Hughes]

Still nowhere near as good as he will become if he stays focused & yet already one of the best. How good can he be in the future ? Well done Joe.

I wonder who was responsible for bringing him in ? Was it Pearce, the goalkeeping coach at the time, one of the scouts, Jim Cassell ? Whoever it was deserves to get a mention & a pat on the back now he's won this award imo.

[Fesan]

Great GK and seemingly one of the biggest contributors to our great team spirit.. just look at the trainride home from FA cup. Thank you for being you Hart:-)

[Colin the King]

His goalkeeping qualities are obvious, but in terms of mentality, he's got it nailed down- a huge amount of self-confidence, almost an arrogance when on the pitch, but off it, he's modest enough to accept when he's had shortcomings and knows he can still improve. Only a few weeks ago he spoke about how disgusted he was with his performance at Everton.

I like Shay but, despite being a decade younger, Joe is an infinitely better all round 'keeper. Rather than making 10 stunning saves in a game, he has the organisational skills to only need to make a couple, and his concentration is always 100% when the time comes to stand up and make one. Obviously the defence plays a huge part in us keeping that many clean sheets, and they've been fantastic, but I feel safe in the knowledge that, on the rare occasions they are breached and a man sent through, that Joe will stop them from scoring.

It's interesting that Birmingham finished 9th and had one of the tightest defences in the league last season, while we leaked goals quite alarmingly. Now, the roles are reversed. Bearing in mind that Kolarov is the only addition to our defence, you couldn't say money was the reason we're more solid defensively this season. I think Joe has a big say in that.

[Patrick]

Fucl me, I never realised how tall he is

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

I swear, I had never even heard of such award until few days ago and even then I thought it was just a saying. So there REALLY is Golden Glove award! Does anyone know how long they've been giving this away?

[xavi6]

I swear, I had never even heard of such award until few days ago and even then I thought it was just a saying. So there REALLY is Golden Glove award! Does anyone know how long they've been giving this away?

It's been there years, Reina and Cech are always the two going for it it seems.

Hart is awesome, super to have around and it's say he's some craic on a night out.

[bobby brows]

His goalkeeping qualities are obvious, but in terms of mentality, he's got it nailed down- a huge amount of self-confidence, almost an arrogance when on the pitch, but off it, he's modest enough to accept when he's had shortcomings and knows he can still improve. Only a few weeks ago he spoke about how disgusted he was with his performance at Everton.

I like Shay but, despite being a decade younger, Joe is an infinitely better all round 'keeper. Rather than making 10 stunning saves in a game, he has the organisational skills to only need to make a couple, and his concentration is always 100% when the time comes to stand up and make one. Obviously the defence plays a huge part in us keeping that many clean sheets, and they've been fantastic, but I feel safe in the knowledge that, on the rare occasions they are breached and a man sent through, that Joe will stop them from scoring.

It's interesting that Birmingham finished 9th and had one of the tightest defences in the league last season, while we leaked goals quite alarmingly. Now, the roles are reversed. Bearing in mind that Kolarov is the only addition to our defence, you couldn't say money was the reason we're more solid defensively this season. I think Joe has a big say in that.

Its not like you can say that we've got a really settled back four either! We've had 3 different centre half partnerships (combination of Vinny, Kolo and Joleon) as well as Jerome in their somewhere. We've had 4 left backs: Zab, Kolorov, Lescott and even Jerome
and we've had umpteen right backs: Zab, Micah, Jerome and Dedryck

[blues-clues]

Fucl me, I never realised how tall he is

Aaarrrgggh scrolled down this thread hoping no-one else had commented that it was no wonder he had won the award given that he must be at least 8 feet tall!

[Nutzer]

Fucl me, I never realised how tall he is

Aaarrrgggh scrolled down this thread hoping no-one else had commented that it was no wonder he had won the award given that he must be at least 8 feet tall!

Just a shame there wasn't such an award back when Big Joe Corrigan was our goalie. He was 6' 5" and scared the heck out of any forward charging towards him.

[phips]

2 in a row it looks like

Hart - 17
Krul - 15

with one week left.