Former Man City keeper Joe Hart explains retirement decision
Joe Hart says he's focussed on finishing his career on a high after announcing he will retire in the summer. He will be 37 years old when his three-year contract with Celtic ends. Hart started playing first-team football in April 2004 with Shrewsbury and has played for England 75 times.
He won two Premier League titles with Manchester City and was a key part of the club's rise to the top of English football. But this will be his final campaign as a player.
"This is something I have thought about for a while," Hart said on Celtic TV. "There's no right or wrong time is there but the way this club works is that I'm playing out at the moment. There's so much on it. There's so much heart and soul poured into what we're doing as a football club.
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"But with the grand scheme of the club, with the support base, and the conversations that go on around it, there's obviously a conversation around the goalkeeping position for next season. So I just think it was really important that with the blessing of the club I've had the conversations with the club with Brendan, with Stevie Woods (goalkeeping coach) that we get the message out, it takes one thing off the table that people need to speculate over.
"I'm definitely not going to be there next season. I'm not going to be available to play football next season. So I want to take that off the table and then we can talk about why and then push forward."
Hart still feels "great" physically and he stressed his commitment to the Parkhead club as they look to defend their cinch Premiership title and the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup. With 13 league fixtures