Celtic’s hunt for a new goalkeeper took a major twist a few short weeks ago when Joe Hart announced he is to retire at the end of the season.
The treble-winning history maker will hang up his gloves and, hopefully, it will be with another league title in the bag and a Scottish Cup winners medal hanging around his neck.
No one can deny that since his £1m move from Spurs just under three years ago, Hart has been an immense success at Celtic.
For all his faults, the veteran goalkeeper has saved us in many games over the course of this season and replacing him is going to be extremely difficult.
He is also going to be missed sorely by the Celtic fans who have grown extremely fond of Hart over the years.
So who can replace him? Do Celtic even have names on a list? If not, here is one that I think could do a job and he could cost nothing this summer.
Alex Meret could be Celtic’s next Joe Hart
The current Napoli goalkeeper has been in great form for the Italian club this season. A Serie A and Italian Cup winner, Meret is out of contract this summer.
Meret was purchased by Napoli in 2018 for €25m (£22m) from Udinese. [ESPN]
However, his agent is confident of securing a one-year extension as Meret’s current deal only requires him to play 70% of Napoli’s first-team games this season for the extension to kick in.
With Meret being the first name on the team sheet, that doesn’t seem to be an issue. What could be though is that according to TuttuMercato, his agent is quoted as saying he is pushing for a better and longer deal for Meret and if he doesn’t get it, he could leave the club.
Meret is currently on £49k per week at the Italian giants so if Celtic were to make a move the money they save on a fee could be pumped into the 26-year-old keepers salary. [SalarySport]
Alex Meret’s stats and being a Celtic No1
Meret has made 22 appearances for Napoli this season and has had four clean sheets and conceded 25 goals and has an average rating of 6.61 on Fotmob.
He has made 49 saves this season which ranks in the middle of the Serie A top performers with a save success rate of over 66%. Not bad considering he is coming up against some of the best strikers in Europe.
Meret has faced 2 penalties and saved one this season but he has one of the lowest stats for claiming high balls at just four.
The 26-year-old has a passing accuracy of 81.7% and has attempted 84 long balls with a success rate of just over 45%.
He also has three caps for Italy. Meret clearly has talent and has areas of his game he needs to tidy up but so did Hart and it didn’t stop him becoming a success at Celtic.