Hart ‘deeply unhappy’ with decision to play on third-tier ground

Joe Hart lashed out at the decision to play England’s 2-0 defeat to Spain at the home of third-tier club Hercules, describing it as “strange”.

England’s 15-match unbeaten run came to an end in Alicante as Spain comfortably beat Hodgson’s team thanks to goals from Mario Gaspar and Santi Cazorla.

Gaspar put the European champions ahead with a stunning acrobatic volley and Cazorla took advantage of some slack defending by curling in the winner eight minutes from time.

Hart had no complaints about the result – Spain were good value for the win – but he was deeply unhappy that such a prestige fixture took place at the Estadio Jose Rico Perez, the home of Segunda Division B side Hercules.

”It’s strange how we’ve ended up playing on a Third Division pitch for a game like England v Spain,” said Hart, who captained the team in Wayne Rooney’s absence.

“It wasn’t good enough, I’m not making excuses.”

Hart admitted he was deeply unhappy at seeing England’s unbeaten run, which had stretched back to the World Cup, come to an end.

“I’m upset,” the England goalkeeper said.

“We’ve done well for a long time now so it’s difficult when we do lose.

”We had some chances, we were in the game. We need to dust ourselves off and perform better against France (on Tuesday).

”We did break through Spain and we did that on enough occasions but after that we let ourselves down a little bit.”