John Ruddy gaffe lets Joe Hart off hook

Manchester City 2 Norwich City 1: Joe Hart may have ended up on the winning side, but there was a trace of guilt in his manner as he left the Etihad Stadium. “Be nice to me, won’t you lads?” he said as he passed a group of reporters, hoping for an interview. “I can’t talk after I’ve thrown one in like that.”

In the end, it did not matter that the Manchester City goalkeeper dropped a Robbie Brady cross to gift an equaliser to the alert Cameron Jerome seven minutes from the end.

Yet Hart was not going to let himself off the hook so easily. England’s number one was desperately disappointed by his error; that it did not cost his team the Premier League leadership was down to an even later mistake by his opposite number.