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Joe Hart appears settled at new Italian club

By John Harbeck

OLYMPIC GRANDE TORINO STADIUM, TURIN, ITALY - 2016/09/25: Players of Torino FC celebrate at the end of the Serie A football match between Torino FC and AS Roma.Torino FC wins 3-1 over AS Roma. (Photo by Nicolò Campo/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
OLYMPIC GRANDE TORINO STADIUM, TURIN, ITALY - 2016/09/25: Players of Torino FC celebrate at the end of the Serie A football match between Torino FC and AS Roma.Torino FC wins 3-1 over AS Roma. (Photo by Nicolò Campo/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images) /
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It is always rare to see a high-profile Englishman leave the Premier League. It is even more bizarre when his destination isn’t a big club like David Beckham or Gareth Bale leaving for Real Madrid.

Well in perhaps one of the most under the radar, big loan deals of the summer window, England international and Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart was loaned out to Torino.  What makes this a strange move is that Torino isn’t even the biggest club in their own city as Juventus hold claim to that title.

How Joe Hart would settle in at Torino was a fascination of many heading into the season as he was let go from Manchester City for a perceived inability to play with his feet.  That is of course not Hart’s strength, as he is something of a pure shot stopper.

In his first match, Hart’s strength appeared to have failed him, as on a corner kick he was seen flapping at the ball, sending it straight into the foot of the Atalanta player.  Hart’s Italian vacation was clearly off to a difficult start.

Fast forward three weeks and Hart has quickly changed the narrative for both himself and what was a struggling Torino squad.  After that first Atalanta match, Torino had lost two of the first three matches, shipping six goals in the process.  Since, Joe Hart has been masterful for Torino, keeping two clean sheets in the next two matches and only conceding one goal on a penalty.

After receiving a match rating of 5.29 in the Atalanta match per whoscored.com Hart has recovered to post scores of 7.33 or above in the next three.  He has made multiple difficult saves that display his true ability to command the box.  Not only that, but Hart has clearly made an effort to work on his distribution.  This means long outlet passes and attempting to play composed short passes after feeling pressure in the defensive third.

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Most impressively, Torino won at home for the first time in over twenty years against Roma this past weekend.  Hart did his part, making five big saves and consistently finding the correct player in his distribution.

Torino is far from a sure thing in Serie A as they are a club who has become a selling club.  Seemingly every year they ship out their best players for high prices, so to expect anything more than a mid-table finish is probably unrealistic.

With that being said, Hart has led a good defensive start to a season in which several key defensive players were sold by Torino, including Kamil Glik and Bruno Peres.  This may be a long season for Joe Hart, but he is certainly doing his part to improve the squad, even learning Italian.

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