Former Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart has revealed that Roberto Mancini didn’t get along with Shay Given during the trio’s time together at the club.
Speaking on a recent edition of Ben Foster’s Fozcast, Hart had this to say about Given and his relationship with Mancini.
He said: “I think he was injured towards the end of the [2009/10] season, and him and Mancini, I don’t know why, but they just clashed.
“Shay is strong, Shay won’t be taken for granted and I think Roberto, being Italian, he had this idea of a bigger goalkeeper and he kind of held that against Shay.
“He didn’t let him just be Shay, rather than just enjoy the great goalkeeper that he was and Shay probably felt that.”
As Hart mentioned, Given, who City signed in 2009 from Newcastle United for a fee of £7m, missed the final three Premier League games of the 2009/10 season with a shoulder injury after playing in all of the prior matches.
The next campaign then saw the Irishman make just four senior appearances for the Citizens across all competitions before eventually leaving the club in the summer of 2011 to join Aston Villa.
With that in mind, it’s clear that the Italian quickly took a preference towards Hart over Given, which is easy to see now that the Englishman has revealed his former teammate didn’t get along with Mancini.
Bearing in mind how Hart went on to become an important figure for the Manchester club during the Italian’s reign, helping them win the FA Cup in 2011 and the Premier League in 2012 before Mancini left in 2013.
