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Man City's Joe Hart is by far the best goalkeeper England has, says Jeff Stelling

Image: Joe Hart: beaten four times by Ibrahimovic in Sweden on Wednesday

Joe Hart has taken a bit of stick for his performance against Sweden.

Staggering
By the way, if you haven't seen it you must watch Zlatan Ibrahimovic's fourth goal because it was simply astonishing. Ibrahimovic is marmite - a lot of people love him, a lot of people hate him and he certainly still has some work to do to convince the majority in England that he is a great performer week in, week out - but put him on a certain stage and he can be inspirational. Goals like his fourth are the sorts of moments you only get from a footballing genius and I doubt we'll ever see another goal like that again. It was staggering and left England's raft of youngsters in no doubt about how big a step up it is to international football. I know some people won't be happy if the likes of Wilfried Zaha don't commit themselves to England now having pulled on the shirt in a friendly. But that doesn't change the fact that he still qualifies to play for another nation and it must be a hugely difficult, emotional decision for him to make. If he does end up playing for the Ivory Coast then so be it; it's a decision for him, not one that people in the media or otherwise should try to influence. We should just leave it to the boy to decide where his allegiances lie. The simple matter that he played last night, given the circumstances, must have put a lot of pressure on his performance and I would love to know what was going through his head when he stepped out onto the pitch.
Support
I'm sure it won't have escaped your attention that Hartlepool have appointed a new manager this week in the shape of John Hughes - and about time too because we are nine points adrift of safety at the bottom League One. Life in League Two is so dangerous because you're only ever a poor run from dropping over the edge into the Conference, which is a darn hard league to get out of. So we certainly don't want to go back there but the way things are going at the moment we are heading towards League Two at a rate of knots. John has a fantastic track record and the people I spoke to about him before he got the job - John Collins, Charlie Nicholas and Iain Dowie - were all incredibly positive about him. He has my 100 per cent support. There's no doubt that he's got a tough job ahead of him but if we can get two or three wins soon we'll be right back in the thick of it. I genuinely don't believe that we are as bad as are position in the league - but now we have to prove it.

Jeff's Gem of the Week

Watford put in an outstanding performance to crush Leeds - winning 6-1 was an exceptional result - but I'm going to go with Preston's 4-1 win away at Stevenage. It must have been a joy for Graham Westley to go back to his old club, where he did so brilliantly, and get such a fantastic result. Graham's made more changes than a drag artist there; the ins and outs at the club have been absolutely staggering. But whatever he's done seems to be working. He looks as though he has a squad that buys into what he wants to achieve. The one thing I'm still looking forward to seeing at Preston is whether they can work his magic with Lee Trundle, who was one of the surprise signings of the season. Lee's back in training now; can they conjure up the old magic because Lee was a real entertainer and I'd love to see him playing to his potential again.

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