Guardiola plays for time over Hart future

MANCHESTER (United Kingdom): Pep Guardiola has tried to play down talk of Joe Hart's Manchester City future, despite previous indications that the goalkeeper is set to leave at the end of the season.

Hart told the BBC on Thursday that he is "surplus to requirements" at the Etihad and does not expect to play for City again, having joined Italian Serie A club Torino on a season's loan last August.

The England international was effectively frozen out because, in the view of Guardiola, he is not suited to a possession-based style of football.

Claudio Bravo was brought in from Barcelona for £17.1million ($20.8 million, 19.5 million euros) as Hart's replacement, but the Chile international has been unconvincing, losing his place to Willy Caballero, the veteran backup goalkeeper.

Guardiola said at the end of February that he would be happy to go into next season with Caballero and Bravo as his two senior goalkeepers, and it is widely expected that Hart will be sold at he end of the current campaign, for a fee of around £20 million.

Yet asked to respond to Hart's comments, the City manager told a news conference on Friday: "I said many times we will explain at the end of the season about all the cases.

"There are the cases of the players that are here, the players that are happy or unhappy and the players that are loan.

"Joe is a player for Manchester City and we are going to decide that at the end of the season."

Guardiola is happier that his team's defensive record has improved of late, with four clean sheets in their last six matches in all competitions.

City struggled defensively earlier in the season, keeping just one clean sheet in 17 matches between mid-September and midDecember.

"I've said many times before as well that football is not a game where now it is defending and now it is attacking," Guardiola explained.

"When you attack better, you defend better, When you defend better, you attack better," the Spaniard added.