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Parkesy hands down his Joe Hart verdict

phil_parkes_upton_park_11_september_2010Exclusive

Phil Parkes has waded into the discussion over whether Joe Hart should be a realistic target for the Irons this summer and made his feelings crystal clear.

Big Phil – who justifiably carries the title of “best goalkeeper in Hammers history ” for many issued a brutal assessment of the stopper in warning Slaven Bilic and the board against buying or loaning the stopper.

Hart is on a reported £100k wage a week and would make a massive dent in the club’s budget at a time when strikers are the priority.

And Parkesy declared: I’ve never really rated him – he makes too may mistakes and I remember the Torino chairman summing  his time at the club on loan.

“He said: ‘Joe Hart was okay but I really wasn’t expecting him to make as many mistakes as he did while he with us.”

Parkes added: “There really aren’t that many decent keepers around anymore and Hart was probably the best of a bad bunch. I really can’t see how the Hammers can justify spending that sort of cash on wages for him.”

Parkes believes the goalkeeping position has almost become forgotten with clubs focused on strikers and top midfielders.

He said: “To be brutally honest there are very few seriously good keepers around anyway. Were the club interested in buying one then Burnley’s Tom Heaton would be a punt. I like him but I imagine his club would put a silly price tag on him.

Fraser Forster at Southampton is another who has been mentioned but he’s another who can be error prone so we are probably as well off sticking with what we’ve got.

“Adrian and Darren Randolph are very similar and I guess the pre-season will decide who starts the season although as the man in possession  Adrian is favourite.”

 

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

4 comments on “Parkesy hands down his Joe Hart verdict

  1. Phil Parkes,Proper West Ham legend,telling it like it is! Our keepers are as good as most of the other ‘Good’ Keepers out there (mistakes’n all),….Joe Hart….dont make me laugh!

  2. For £100k per week he’d need to be ‘head and shoulders’ above Adrian.
    IMO, he’s not.

  3. I agree with CondorHammer. I have never rated Hart particularly highly. Guardiola clearly agrees. Hart is not even the best English GK as he showed in the recent Scotland match.
    I would put Adrian and Hart pretty close. Both are prone to making howlers but are generally competent if not exceptional. Even de Gea (who I think is the best GK in the PL) makes the occasional howler. I’ don’t think GK is a key position to fill. If Pickford cost £30m, I’d rather spend these sort of sums on a striker (and preferably one without a proven injury record!)

  4. Jack Butland, Forster or Heaton would all be an improvement on Randolph, Adrian looks like his time on the bench was spent improving parts of his game so if we don’t sign anyone with Adrian as first choice and Randolph second its not the worst thing in the world and as we all agree signing a striker or two is the main priority. If Leicester buy Iheanacho which is quite likely we should try and get Slimani from them, I can’t see Wenger letting Giroud go and Slimani is more mobile than Giroud and likely to score as many goals, they also have Musa who we were interested in last summer, he is a very long way from the finished article but he does have pace to burn and as a long shot at the right price might be worth a punt.

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