England boss Roy Hodgson has 'every confidence' that goalkeeper Joe Hart will put his poor performance against Bayern Munich behind him when he turns up for Three Lions duty ahead of next week's vital World Cup qualifiers.
The Manchester City keeper was on Thursday named in the squad to face Montenegro and Poland the day after European champions Bayern claimed an easy 3-1 win at the Etihad Stadium.
Hart's handling of two of the successful strikes was called into question but, while Hodgson admitted it was fair to criticise the 26-year-old, he reminded reporters how mistakes had also been made in City's midfield.
Hodgson told Sky Sports News: "I think goalkeepers are always going to be in that situation. The goalkeeper who lets a goal in which people think he might have saved, I'm afraid these are the people in the firing line.
"They're very much in the firing line when it comes to criticism and to some extent it's a little bit easier to criticise the goalkeeper for what you think is a mistake when you could criticise the midfielder whose poor pass two or three moments earlier has provoked the goal chance in the first place.
"I believe that Joe will shrug this off, I'm sure that he's not happy with the criticism and he's not happy to have let in goals that he thinks he might have stopped.
"As far as I'm concerned he's never let me or the team down in the time I've been working with him.
"I have every confidence and every faith in him that he will have the confidence to put this behind him."
Hart kept clean sheets in England's previous qualifying games against Moldova and Ukraine.
Source: PA
