There are three things that are certain in life; death, taxes and someone questioning why Pep Guardiola chose to replace Joe Hart with Claudio Bravo.
On Wednesday night, Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil walked away with hat-tricks but after a red card saw Claudio Bravo get sent off, the news headlines were once again dominated by talk about Manchester City’s goalkeeping switch.
It’s rather baffling that it’s still this big of an issue when taken at face value. A manager joins a new team, and chooses to replace a player with someone he sees as a better fit. Hardly shocking is it? In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any occasion where a new manager was brought into a club and made no replacements whatsoever. Yet when you throw the names into the equation, it suddenly becomes one of the most controversial topics in football these days.
Joe Hart is a Manchester City legend and was a pivotal part of their title wins in the past few years. This makes matters far more complicated as it’s no longer only about what’s on the pitch but now you have to factor in a lot more. Therefore, the decision to pick someone over him has proved to be a controversial one.
It’s not an unfamiliar situation to Guardiola, though. When he took over Barcelona in 2008, he had not yet managed a single competitive game when he announced that Barcelona would be planning their seasons without some star players, namely Ronaldinho, Deco and Samuel Eto’o. This was after Barcelona had already offloaded Gianluca Zambrotta and Giovani Dos Santos.
There was nothing personal to it, Guardiola simply felt that both the team and dressing room would be better off without them and so they were put up for sale despite their reputations. Similar situations occurred down the line in his managerial career both at Barcelona and at Bayern. It should be no surprise then that Guardiola is not afraid of letting go of a star player, irrespective of what he means to the club, if he felt it was better for the team and this appears to be the case with what has happened at Manchester City.
It’s no secret that Guardiola’s football has an emphasis on possession and passing, and with that in mind it would make sense that he would choose to replace Joe Hart with someone better in that regard.
People might have come to understand Guardiola’s obsession with his style of football, but they still question whether a goalkeeper would really be the biggest difference in it. It’s necessary to highlight therefore, that changing the goalkeeper was not the only change the Spaniard made to the Manchester City side. There were numerous players transferred out, and numerous players bought in to effectively implement what he wanted. The change of goalkeepers was only a piece of the puzzle even if in recent times it’s the only thing that’s being brought up.
Moreover, Guardiola is a micro-manager by every definition of the word – a perfectionist by nature. His refusal to abandon the style of play he feels best is staunch evidence of this. So it should not be a surprise to anyone that he would go so far as to want to have the ideal goalkeeper to fit into his tactics, and analysing the passing stats between Joe Hart and Claudio Bravo should highlight a difference significant enough to show why the Manchester City boss made the change.
Last season, Claudio Bravo completed an average of 18.1 short passes per 90 minutes compared to Joe Hart‘s 5.7. As for long balls, although Joe Hart attempted an average of 15 long balls per 90 minutes compared to Bravo’s 8.4, Hart was missing an astonishing 9.8 of those compared to only 4 inaccurate long balls by Bravo. Overall, Bravo’s passing success rate over the season was just over 84% while Joe Hart’s was just under 53%.
Another indicator would be “Distribution Accuracy“. Distribution Accuracy is a stat by Squawka that measures the accuracy of distribution by goalkeepers by taking a wide range of factors into account including the accuracy from goal kicks, the ball being kicked from the hand, the ball being thrown from the hand rather than just the regular passes from open play.
Bravo finished the season with a distribution accuracy of 86%, the highest of any goalkeeper to have played 10 or more games last season in the Europe’s top five leagues. Joe Hart on the other hand recorded a distribution accuracy of a measly 59%, not even among the top 50 in the top five leagues.
The season before was a very similar story. Bravo finished the 2014-2015 season with a passing success rate around 80%, while Joe Hart completed just under 48% of his passes. Bravo shined with a distribution accuracy of 83%, second to only Manuel Neuer in Europe’s top five leagues. Meanwhile Joe Hart’s 56% saw him finish, like last season, well beyond the top 50.
*Statistics used are based on figures in their respective leagues only, unless otherwise stated. Statistics used are from whoscored.com and Squawka, unless otherwise stated.
It would be unfair to Hart if it wasn’t mentioned that these statistics don’t give the whole picture of the two ‘keepers, but they don’t need to in this context. The reason they are brought up is not to paint a poor picture of Joe Hart as a keeper. He is undeniably an exceptional shot stopper, and his four golden gloves are a testament to it.
However, the difference in these stats is significant enough to highlight Bravo’s superior passing skills – which is why Guardiola brought him into the side. Guardiola wanted to add a keeper that would allow him to build from the back, and there were few better options than Bravo that would have been available when judging by that regard.
“Surely Hart’s stats would have improved in Guardiola’s system so why couldn’t Pep just convert Hart into the keeper he wanted?”
It’s a question being asked by many of the City faithful and it’s understandable given their attachment to someone that they would have wanted to see remain at the club.
Unfortunately, we live in a world that, for better or worse, chooses to base everything on immediate results. (Just look at how Bravo is getting branded a flop after less than 10 games!)
Anything short of winning the league wouldn’t be considered a successful season, and therefore Guardiola chose to do what he felt would give him the best chance at success. He chose to go for a player that proved reliable in a passing side in the last two seasons rather than risk his plans attempting to change a 29-year-old Hart. Disappointing for those that admire Joe, but you would find a similar story somewhere with almost any manager that has expectations as high as those that surround the Spaniard.
Unfortunately for Pep, Bravo hasn’t been at his best.
We have seen at times why the Chilean was brought into the team. For example, he was often playing as an 11th outfield player for City, opening up their passing lanes and making it harder for United to press successfully as shown brilliantly in this graph. But he was also responsible for them conceding a goal that game, dropping the ball which lead to Ibrahimovic scoring. It’s been the story of his City career so far; what he is adding to the teams seems to be spoiled by his costly mistakes.
“What good are passing skills if he can’t stop goals?”
This is a question that seems to have come up as a result of the goal keeping mistakes being made. It would be a fair question, had Guardiola brought Toni Kroos and played him between the sticks. Bravo isn’t at his best yet and while his skills on the ball may have been the major factor in why he was chosen, it would be absurd to doubt his goal keeping abilities. Bravo had been an instrumental part of the Barcelona and Chile sides in the last two seasons, winning the league consecutively with the Spanish club and Copa America consecutively with his country. He won several awards for his performances, including a place in the La Liga 2014-2015 team of the year, a place in the Copa America team of the tournament in both editions while taking home the ‘keeper of the tournament award both times as well.
Bravo needs to step up and repay the faith Guardiola has put in him. But even if he hasn’t done that just yet, the decision to bring him in was nevertheless understandable and really doesn’t need to be questioned every time he makes a mistake.
