Sports Ladder: (18th-24th November)

UP - Jason Day - A hugely emotional week for the Australian as he captured the World Cup of Golf, beating the Dane Thomas Bjorn by two shots. As well as winning the individual event, Day and compatriot Adam Scott also claimed the World Cup for Australia for the first time since 1989. The week was given added emotion by the death of eight relatives in Typhoon Haiyan. A touching victory for Day in the circumstances.

UP - Mark Webber - As the Formula 1 season draws to a close we say goodbye to one of the sports great servants. Mark Webber departs in traditional fashion, finishing second behind his partner Sebastian Vettel, nevertheless it is with great sadness we say goodbye to Mark. With three third place finishes in the overall championships over eleven years he has been a truly great addition to the sport.

UP - George Groves - It seems strange to include a man who lost a boxing match, but George Groves announced himself on the World boxing stage this week after a controversial loss to super-middleweight champion Carl Froch. Groves had Froch on the canvas in the first round and, had it gone to a points decision, would have definitely won. Re-match please?

UP - Gibraltar - This week Gibraltar became the latest team to join the UEFA family, drawing their first game 0-0 with Slovakia. This is an outstanding achievement from a team whose nation consists of around only 30,000 people, making it the smallest population of any UEFA member. They begin their first serious competition in the Euro 2016 qualification.

UP - Phil 'The Power' Taylor - It's nearly Christmas which can mean only one thing, it's darts time! Phil Taylor laid down a warning to his competitors (as if they needed one) when he surged to the Grand Slam of Darts title last weekend. He didn't have it all his own way mind, with an outstanding semi-final clash against Adrian Lewis. Roll on next months World Championship.

DOWN - Kevin Friend - Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. An absolutely awful decision by Friend at the weekend to send off West Brown. Brown appeared to get the ball cleanly and no Stoke players complained but in a moment of madness Friend decided to show Brown red. An explanation is definitely required for this one.

DOWN - England Football Team - After the end of World Cup qualification, with two impressive wins under our belt, we were in euphoria. Could we actually win the World Cup? Last week brought us back down to Earth, with consecutive Wembley losses to Chile and Germany, the first time we have lost back-to-back there for 36 years. On that display we'll be lucky to reach the last sixteen.

DOWN - Tottenham - How do you prove that you're a title contender after spending over £100 million on players in the summer? One way to disprove your credentials would be losing 6-0 to fellow contenders Manchester City. AVB has received mild criticism all season but yesterday marked a whole new chapter as his management is bound to come under question after this humiliating defeat.

DOWN - Formula 1 - As Formula 1 shuts down for the winter, some serious questions need to be asked of the sport. As a long term Formula 1 fan, this season has been the dullest in living memory. Not even because Vettel won it comfortably again, but because the current situation with tyres has meant it is too tactical and there is not enough racing. Changes are needed for next year to regain interest.

DOWN - England Cricket Team - If we thought the national football team were bad, the cricketers took it to another level. Failing to make 200 runs in either innings and eventually losing by 381 runs, the team have a lot of thinking to do going into the second test. That said, take nothing away from Australia, who were outstanding across the field.

Hart Ache: How Manchester City's Golden Boy Lost his Sparkle.

Over the last few years Joe Hart has been head and shoulders (pun  intended) over the competition both for club and country. However today he finds himself having missed three consecutive match for Manchester City and his England position under question. An evident decline in form has left the goalkeeper feeling somewhat isolated in recent weeks but I want to question how he has got to this stage, both mentally and physically and where he goes from here.

Mentally

Joe Hart truly emerged on the scene during his loan spell at Birmingham, getting placed in the PFA Team of the Season before breaking through into the Manchester City first team. In the 2010-2011 season he was, perhaps controversially, picked ahead of Shay Given, although the gamble paid off as Hart went on to collect the Player of the Season award whilst Given moved to Aston Villa in search of first team football. In the same season he also broke into the international team. After the retirement of David James a battle for the number one jersey broke out, with Hart emerging victorious. Since then his position in the England team has never been questioned. Until now.

So why this change? The simple answer lies in the lack of competition. Since that season, three years ago, he has never been challenged and therefore has slipped into the mindset that he is untouchable. Sadly this is not the case. No one has a permanent place on a football pitch, and this fact is heavily emphasised by the Iker Casillas saga at Real Madrid. Last season he played under twenty league games for the first time in his senior career and Joe Hart should be vary wary of a similar issue at City if he does not eradicate his current mindset. The shattering of this subconscious feeling of being untouchable will have been a kick-in-the-teeth for Hart, and mentally he needs to eradicate this thought quickly, and realise that to maintain his spot a constant high level of concentration and determination is required.

In blooding Pantilimon, Pellegrini is doing the right thing for Hart. His complacency has led to a decline is his concentration levels during games for both club and country and this has led to a catalogue of errors over the last year or so. With the international friendlies fast approaching, it is vital that Hodgson does the same, giving Fraser Forster and John Ruddy a chance in goal, as if it comes around to the World Cup and Hart is still in this unreliable form, another keeper will be required. However, hopefully by that point, Hart will have adapted to the situation and will regain his composure through competition with Pantilimon,

Physically

On paper, Joe Hart has been the best goalkeeper in the Premier League over the last three years, epitomised by his back-to-back Golden Glove award for most clean sheets. However, it is worth acknowledging that Manchester City have conceded the fewest goals in each of the last three seasons so a lot of credit for this has to go to the defence as well as the goalkeeper.

By studying the statistics, it is all too obvious that Joe Hart is a player in declining form. This season alone he has made 3 errors leading to goals off the back of 6 errors last year. Compare this with the 1 error over the three seasons before last and you see an issue. The other main issue in studying his decline is a huge decrease in his save percentage. In both the 2010-11 campaign and the 2011-12 campaign his save percentage was 77%, however last year this tumbled to 69%, dropping him out of the top ten keepers in terms of save percentage for the first time in his career. This season the decline has continued, currently lying at a lowly 63%. This is perhaps a reflection of the lapse in concentration as a result of mental complacency mentioned earlier. The most surprising statistic of all is that Hart claimed only 87% of aerial balls last season. This does not sound particularly poor until you compare it with David de Gea, a keeper who was constantly hounded in the press for his lack of physical presence and general weakness in the air, who claimed 88%. Make of that what you will.

It is also worth comparing Hart to the other three keepers that played every minute of every game for their team last season, Asmir Begovic, Jussi Jaaskelainen and Simon Mignolet to see how they faired in comparison. In terms of clean sheets Hart was way out in front on 18 whilst Begovic has 12 and the other two had 11, however this can be attributed largely to the defence rather than the goalkeeper. A more interesting statistic is that Hart runs out with the lowest save percentage at 69%. Begovic has 70% with Mignolet on 72% and Jaaskelainen on 76%. It is worth noting that Hart would have had the highest percentage if his statistics from any other season were used. This would also have been the case in regards to errors leading to goals but instead, Hart once again finished bottom with 6. Begovic and Jaaskelainen both made 5 whilst Mignolet made only 2. The purpose of these comparisons is to emphasise that Manchester City's strong defensive record has successfully hidden Hart's decline and it is only in deeper study that you realise the extend of his decline over the last year.

So What Next?

For me, Hart needs to get himself out of the spotlight. He has received plenty of scrutiny and negative press in the last few months and needs to stay out of the public eye for a while. Giving Pantilimon a run in goal and experimenting with keepers internationally should help take the attention away from Hart allowing him to regain focus. By keeping his head down and working hard in training he will regain both a physical and mental sharpness so that when he does get back into the starting eleven he will have less issues remaining there.

The reality is that, on his day Joe Hart is arguably the best goalkeeper in the Premier League, but it hasn't been his day for a while. This will all be a learning curve for him and will only benefit him in the long term. When he returns we will see a more mature goalkeeper, one who has gained experience from his errors and one than can potentially go down as a footballing legend but in order for him to do this he has to grit his teeth and come back fighting.