Hartson has almost constantly been linked with a move to the Liberty Stadium for the past eighteen months and Roberto did speak to the striker earlier this season but revealed soon after that he would not be making a move.\u00a0 And having been released by West Brom last week the former Welsh international hung his boots up this week saying that he could no longer continue in the game.<\/p>\n
Speaking to BBC Sport though Hartson revealed that not playing for Swansea was the biggest regret of his career – he has been a Swans fan all his life.\u00a0 “Going to Swansea would have meant more than joining Manchester United.” he said<\/p>\n
“I tried to join last summer but nothing materialised, which was a shame.<\/p>\n
“I was very close to joining Swansea 18 months as Kenny Jackett wanted me to partner Lee Trundle up front,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I had a meeting with the new manager Roberto Martinez and a club director last summer and I told them my desire to play for the club.<\/p>\n
“It would have been a great last challenge for me as I was then lingering in the reserves at West Brom.<\/p>\n
“My mates are fitness fanatics and they would have got me fit for my final fling, I’d have made sure of that.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately that is not going to happen and following my meeting with Roberto last summer, signing for Swansea was never close.<\/p>\n
“I get on well with Roberto and I have a lot of respect for him, he has done a brilliant job for us.<\/p>\n
“I have very been fortunate to play in Europe for big clubs like Arsenal and Celtic,” said Hartson.<\/p>\n
“And have proudly represented my country.<\/p>\n
“So the idea of going down the leagues had never appealed to me.<\/p>\n
“I could have joined a club next week if I wanted but my fire to train every day has gone.<\/p>\n
“Once you can’t offer that then I don’t see the point in continuing.<\/p>\n
“Someone my size was never going to play until I was 38.<\/p>\n
“But my back, knees and ankles feel quite good, I just don’t have the enthusiasm to continue.<\/p>\n
“The only club that would have given me that fire is Swansea.<\/p>\n
“I would not have wanted my mates booing me off, making a clown of myself playing for the Swans.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hartson has almost constantly been linked with a move to the Liberty Stadium for the past eighteen months and Roberto did speak to the striker earlier this season but revealed soon after that he would not be making a move.\u00a0 And having been released by West Brom last week the former Welsh international hung his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}