Sam Allardyce has confirmed that Joe Hart will “definitely” be in the England manager’s first squad when it is announced on Sunday, when he is set to reveal if Wayne Rooney will remain as captain of the national side.
Hart has been told he can leave Manchester City either on loan or permanently by Pep Guardiola, with Willy Caballero starting all of the club’s matches so far this season and Barcelona’s Claudio Bravo on the verge of completing a switch to the Etihad Stadium.
However, Allardyce has no qualms about picking a goalkeeper who has been England’s No1 since 2010 – although he admits it is a concern if players are not getting any game time at club level. The England manager, who is considering his squad for the first World Cup 2018 qualifier in Slovakia on 4 September, told Sky Sports News: “The problem for any player you want to select for England, not just in isolation but in total areas, is that it will be a concern if a player doesn’t play for his team. I think that you have to have your doubts about that.
“But before I meet up with Joe I don’t really know where he lies in that process at the moment, so I think that when we pick the first squad and then the lads come here [St George’s Park] there will be some lads that don’t play on a regular basis.
“Roy talked about that many times before so I think that we, in the end, select the players that are in the best form. Are they fit and playing? Yes. Can you get them all in the England squad that play every week? Probably no now, so that is a concern that we have to overcome and hopefully that’s on top of hopefully not too many players getting injured.
“All that falls around on the basis that English players playing in the Premier League has diminished over the years, so we have to cope with that the best way that we can.
“In terms of picking Joe and the goalkeeper that he is, he will be in the squad – definitely. What do we do? I won’t really know that until I speak to Joe and that will be the same with most of the players when they arrive.”
The England manager also gave his backing to Wayne Rooney, whose place in the squad and as captain has been questioned since this summer’s European Championship campaign in France, which culminated in a humiliating 2-1 defeat to Iceland at the last 16 stage.
Allardyce said: “We will announce the squad then we’ll meet up and the first thing I would probably choose to tell the public and the media would be who is going to be the captain so we can get that one out of the way.
“He’s England captain, he’s the most successful England player for the last decade, he’s broken every record at league level, Champions League level and international level, so yes, we should talk very much about Wayne and about how good he is, what a fantastic player he is and what a really, really good captain he is.
Rooney, who is England’s all-time leading goalscorer, was played in midfield by the previous manager Roy Hodgson having featured there for Manchester United under Louis van Gaal, but Allardyce would not be drawn on Rooney’s best position.
He said: “Why can’t we be flexible? I don’t know why we can’t be flexible. I think in terms of my time over the last 25 years, the success has come about by asking the players to be flexible and play in a position that sometimes they don’t normally play and be successful in that position.
“In all honesty I’ve changed players’ opinion on what their position has been and played them in a new position and when I’ve asked them to go back to their old position they’ve said: ‘I don’t want to go back there any more’. If you are playing for England, sure it’s about playing in the first XI, no matter where you play.”