Claudio Bravo Not Being Given the Time He Needs to Settle at Manchester City

Pep Guardiola's decision to replace his goalkeeper for the start of his Manchester City reign was always going to come under scrutiny. Joe Hart, now loaned to Torino for a season ahead of what's likely to be a permanent move to somewhere else next summer, had been the club's No. 1 choice between the sticks for six years.

He fought his way into the team under old boss Roberto Mancini after his predecessor Mark Hughes had dispatched him on loan to Birmingham City for 12 months, and he kept the role throughout the rest of the Italian's time in Manchester.

Despite a minor wobble in Manuel Pellegrini's debut season at City, Hart was comfortably the first name on the teamsheet for the Chilean's three years, too.

Replacing a fans' favourite was never going to be a simple task, but from the off, Guardiola is reported to have had doubts about Hart's role in his City team, as noted by the Mirror's Adrian Kajumba.

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Following the announcement that Guardiola was replacing Pellegrini back in February, Hart hit a patch of bad form—which came entirely at the wrong time for him. The incoming manager needed to see signs that the goalkeeper could perform in his system.

Instead, what he saw was a series of matches where poor distribution and mistakes leading to goals were common, and it culminated in a forgettable Euro 2016 for the England international.

When Willy Caballero—a goalkeeper clearly inferior to Hart in almost every department—started the season as first choice, there was no coming back for the former No. 1.

It was no secret that Hart didn't match up to Guardiola's expectations of a goalkeeper who could begin attacks with sharp passing. After he was named for his only City appearance of the Catalan's reign so far, the 1-0 victory over Steaua Bucharest in the Champions League play-off round, Hart was quite candid about having completed 100 per cent of his attempted passes.

"Wow! Pigs do fly, don't they?" he said to BT Sport.

But his replacement, Claudio Bravo, has struggled to settle into English football, with a howler on his debut to gift Zlatan Ibrahimovic a goal in the Manchester derby. It finished 2-1, but were it not for that error, City may have dominated the whole of the 90 minutes and left Manchester United thoroughly embarrassed.

Bravo's been jeered by every set of supporters since, and even sections of his own fans aren't convinced by his confidence on the ball—or overconfidence as it's seen—despite the style of play generally working.

The Chilean is happy to receive possession under pressure, more than comfortable with being closed down and backs his own ability to hold the ball until the very last second before picking out a team-mate. His range of passing is a big asset, too, and he's demonstrated the ability to play the ball short, dink it to the flanks or ping it into the centre-forwards—options that Hart always struggled with.

However, it all looks a bit uncontrolled, and it's not easy watching the goalkeeper scanning for options as an opposing striker thunders towards him without imagining the worst. When it goes wrong, it can be a catastrophe, which is why many still pine for the days when Hart would put his foot through it—even though it probably meant losing possession.

Guardiola, though, deems it well worth the risk because of the benefits it can bring in helping to break down the opposition.

When successful, it sets City off on the attack. A number of goals have been created, in particular in victories over Swansea City, Bournemouth and Borussia Monchengladbach, by the goalkeeper setting his side off on the attack with a deft ball out.

Many more chances that haven't been converted by his attacking colleagues have been created in other matches, yet he's seen as an accident waiting to happen because he dropped a cross at Old Trafford and contributed to a heavy 4-0 defeat at Barcelona by getting himself sent off.

The scrutiny was less when City were winning, of course. But as Guardiola embarks on his worst managerial form and his side are six games without success, focus has switched to the defensive errors his team have been making. Most don't stem from the goalkeeper, but he's made the biggest and most notable blunder of the lot and so has become the poster boy for the new style.

The Telegraph's James Ducker reported Guardiola has considered changing his methods, as the 45-year-old said:

"

But after [thinking about making change], the solution is not better than what I believe. So I cannot. Do you know why as well? Because in seven years I won 21 titles. I'm sorry guys, I won 21 titles in seven years. So it's three titles per year playing in that way. 

[...]

I'm not going to change. First, it's going to happen that [if] it's not going well in the future, next season isn't going well in that way, I will go home.

"

Is Guardiola stubborn for refusing to budge on his style of play? Possibly, though it's hard to criticise a man with his record. Is the English football audience stubborn for not trusting that the Catalan's ideas can work? Probably, and millions of supporters have spent their entire life watching goalkeepers only clear their lines with the ball on the floor.

One thing is for certain, many of us are guilty of assuming the manager wants one thing or the other: short passing or long clearances. Not every ball under pressure has to be hoofed long, and not every pass into the goalkeeper needs to be played out along the ground. The issue isn't black and white.

The manager himself says long passes are useful in his philosophy, per the Mirror's Martin Blackburn.

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It's all about making the right decision—and it's notable that Guardiola wouldn't be drawn on whether Bravo made the wrong choice in trying to play a short pass, which led to his red card in the Camp Nou. Maybe that's because he believes it was the correct thing to do but just poorly executed.

"The most difficult thing in that kind of situation is to discriminate when you can pass the ball and play or put the ball long and sometimes you have to put a long ball," the manager said earlier this month.

"I don't know if this time you have to put a long ball because he was alone, just one guy pressing the ball and three players to pass to and if he hits it long the goal is completely empty. So the decision was not wrong in that moment. He did not pass good and that can happen."

The spotlight will be on Bravo for some considerable time after a difficult start to life in Manchester, but it's hard to shake the feeling that he's been unfairly targeted.

It also feels like there's been no small amount of revisionism about Hart's time at City. He was a fantastic goalkeeper for the club, but he had some regular critics who pointed out weaknesses with shots to his left and his ability to distribute the ball—and that all seems to have been swept under the carpet.

Bravo's not even in double figures for appearances in his City career, and he's already being written off in some quarters.

All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.