Joe Hart has been an integral player at Celtic since arriving at the club last summer and will be hoping to add to his Hoops resume with some big performances in the Champions League.

The former England international knows all about the competition having previously played in it and is looking forward to the challenge.

During his time with Manchester City he played almost 40 games in the Champions League and last featured in the tournament during the second leg of the semi-final back in 2016 in a 1-0 defeat to Real Madrid.

The Scottish champions have already got the season off to a flier having won all four matches.

Although there has been much talk around Celtic’s form in front of goal, the defensive record has also been exemplary with Hart having kept three clean sheets so far.

“I think we’ve picked up where we left off,” said Joe Hart speaking exclusively to Celtic TV. 

“I think the message was to try and improve. We’re getting close to that, I think we’ve set a good standard but we’re not going to rest at that. We don’t want to rest at that, none of us so we’re trying to improve and kick-on every game.

“We’re far too long in the tooth to even think about that. We’ve got steady heads in charge, boys who understand what it means to win titles. We’ve also got boys who understand how exciting it is to be part of title winning football. It was hard last year, really hard and I can’t see it being any different this year.

“We attack as a team, I fully see myself and the other goalkeepers see ourselves as part of the attack and the build up. I think that goes the other way. The strikers put so much hard work in for us defensively, we back them up by trying to be in the right positions, trying to be aggressive. That kind of team ethic both going forward and back it is working for us at the moment but it’s been pointed out to us before  the moment we’re off it slightly, we are quite open so we’ve got to work really really hard to stay where we are.”

There was a new addition to the goalkeeping department at Celtic with the arrival of Benjamin Siegrest this summer who Hart knew all about having faced the Swiss keeper last season.

“He’s settled in well. Obviously, really well respected up here with doing great things at Dundee United.

“Myself personally, how ever many times we played them last year he performed in every single one. He’s a good keeper. Bainy’s a good keeper, we’ve got Toby coming through and we’ve got Conor out working hard in Helsinki.

“The levels are really high. I’ve talked about it before, the manager talks about it – it doesn’t really matter who’s playing the position we honestly feel strong in almost three deep in every position and that’s how we’ve got to be if we want to maintain our standards.”

Callum McGregor has already hinted that he would like to be drawn against Real Madrid but Hart isn’t giving anything away but is looking forward to the big nights at Celtic Park.

“We’re so focused on what we’re doing that it’s hard to actually really really get excited. Obviously it’s going to be great when the nights come but at the end of the day when those nights come we’re not going to have the same buzz as fans because we’re going into it with a job to do with a tough opposition.

“The attitude is we’re here to compete and it’s going to be even harder to compete at that level so the focus just gets more intense if anything.

“We’re not a club who’s qualifying for the first time, we’re a club with history in European competition so I don’t think we can afford to look at it like that.”