Joe Hart
England's goalkeeper Joe Hart makes a penalty save against Brazil during their international friendly football match at Wembley stadium in London Reuters

Former England and Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Corrigan has words of advice for present underfire No 1 Joe Hart.

The 64-year-old, who also had playing spells with the Seattle Sounders in the US' Major League Soccer (MLS), said Hart could improve if he changed his dressing style.

"Joe is a brilliant keeper but what I cannot understand, and nobody has ever explained to me, is why, with the ball being as shiny and moving so much, do goalkeepers wear short-sleeve shirt? They have these new rubber latex gloves at one end of their arm and then they have skin between there and the shirt, which creates another slippery surface," Corrigan said.

Corrigan's comments come after City's poor performance in Saturday's 1-3 defeat to Southampton. The loss, coupled, with Manchester United's 2-0 win on Sunday, means Hart and City are now 12 points behind Sir Alex Ferguson's men in the race for the Premier League title.

And one of the Saints' goals on Saturday was the result of a goalkeeping error from Hart, which, Corrigan said, could have been avoided by long sleeves.

"If you look at the [Southampton] goal from behind, it shows the ball hit Joe in the area which was not covered by the goalkeeping shirt, so situations like this will happen. It was a bad mistake, and while I am not putting that plainly down to the fact he rolled his sleeves up, I am just saying you need all the help you can get when you play in goal," Corrigan explained.

"It is a lot harder now because the ball they use today is so unpredictable. It moves so quickly, but so late - you can see the ball dip. You see how many goals go in where the keepers' hands are nowhere near the ball and that is because it moves so late," he concluded.

Corrigan made over 400 appearances for City, winning the European Cup Winners' Cup and Football League Cup in the 1969/70 season.

Hart's quality in goal is not in question. The 25-year-old made a superb double save in last week's international friendly against Brazil. Nevertheless, Mancini has left no room for doubt over the poor performance of his players and has demanded improvement. Corrigan's advice, at worst, couldn't hurt... even if it does sound improbable.