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Revealed: Joe Hart has one significant weak spot and opposition players are starting to notice
For far too long now there has been a weakness to Joe Hart's game that has been all too apparent. Since his summer move to West Ham, that very problem has reared its all too ugly head once again.
The opening weekend defeat to Manchester United gave Hart a chastening debut, and although the loss was a result of an exceptional performance from the hosts and in particular two other debutants in Nemanja Matic and Romelu Lukaku, more could reasonably have been expected of the England No 1.
It was when the game was already done and dusted that Paul Pogba put the cherry on United's cake by making it 4-0. Hart's starting position as the Frenchman lined up a shot from the edge of the box was poor, but his attempted dive was almost laughable.
He was slow to react to a shot that was neither powerful nor in the corner of the goal, and didn't get down to his left quickly enough. The shot went past him almost in line with the middle of the goal. A keeper of Premier League quality should unquestionably have done better.
It has been a testing introduction to life lower down the Premier League table for him, and over the first three games of his time at West Ham, as well as last season at Serie A side Torino, Hart has done little to prove himself.
While at Manchester City Hart will have had far less work to do, it is becoming increasingly clear that his shot-stopping needs to improve, particularly in a team where he is called into action more, particularly low to his left.
The percentage of shots that Hart saves down low to either side is - as would be expected - significantly worse than up high.
Low to his left, however, Hart is notoriously weak, and as the above graph shows, opposing teams have cottoned on.
His save success rate down low to his left has declined over the past six years, suggesting teams are targeting that side of the goal more. He has faced seven shots low to his left this season and only two to his right; at Torino last season he faced 44 low to his left and 25 to his right; the season before he faced 28 to his left and 18 to his right.
He has not kept out anything approaching the 70 per cent of the shots on target he has faced low to his left in any season since 2011/12, when City won the title.
In his final campaign at City, in 2015/16, he saved just 46 per cent of shots down low to his left; that rose slightly in his single season in Italy, when he kept out 57 per cent of shots low to his left; in three games for West Ham this season, Hart has conceded five goals from the seven shots he has faced low to his left.
There is a genuine, noticeable and really quite worrying weakness at play here, and one that opposition players will understandably target. Could it have been that Gareth Bale knew exactly what he was doing when hitting a speculative 35 yard free-kick at Hart's bottom-left corner at Euro 2016?
In a 4-1 defeat for Torino at Roma last season, Hart was beaten by four similar shots, each low and to his left.
Over the last two-and-a-bit seasons, Hart has successfully stopped less than half the shots he has faced low to his left. If teams can go into games knowing they will score one in every two shots they place in the bottom-right corner of the goal, why wouldn't they do so?
All this leads to the question of the England No 1 spot, and why the likes of Jack Butland, Fraser Forster and Jordan Pickford are not being given more of an opportunity by Gareth Southgate? The way Hart was beaten for Slovakia's opener on Monday night only adds to the argument that it is time for a change on the international scene.
Slaven Bilic was lauded for the coup in bringing Hart to the London Stadium in the summer, but he still has a lot to prove in the West Ham goal, and his left-hand side will come under increasing pressure as long as this record goes on.