<
>

Joe Hart: Slovenia was my best England game in a while

England goalkeeper Joe Hart told ITV he had put in his best performance "in a while" as Gareth Southgate's side scraped a 0-0 draw away to Slovenia.

Hart made a series of fine saves to secure a valuable point in the 2018 World Cup qualifier in Ljubljana, coming off his line after poor backpasses from both Eric Dier and Jordan Henderson in each half.

The pick of his saves came shortly after the break, though, when he clawed Jasmin Kurtic's header against the underside of the crossbar.

The Manchester City keeper, currently on loan at Torino, had to receive treatment after making that save and said: "My body's in absolute pieces. I think I'm going to struggle to get up tomorrow.

"I actually don't know what happened. It hurt though. I think I landed on the frame of the goal and luckily the lads were there to defend."

Asked if it was his best performance for England, he said: "Best one in a while. It's hard to say. I was asked to do quite a bit. It was down to a few errors from us."

On whether England deserved better, he said: "I don't know. They had some chances. We dominated the game but that was down to how they set up. A lot of respect to what they've done tonight. They've dug in.

"[Jan] Oblak I'm a massive fan of in goal for them. It was an interesting game -- 0-0, we're going to have to take it."

He added: "We're going to improve. We're a young team. We've dug in in an intense atmosphere and we took a point. On the night it's a difficult result but we've got to look at the bigger picture -- we're trying to qualify for Russia."