Lawrence Shankland has confessed he has to consider "life after football" as he addressed his Heart of Midlothian future.
The Hearts captain has been influential to a third place Scottish Premiership finish by scoring 30 times this season, and he's expected to represent Scotland at Euro 2024.
But with the striker heading into the last year of his contract and negotiations over a fresh deal hitting a stumbling block, what lies ahead beyond the summer remains uncertain.
Rangers were linked with a January move while his stunning form will likely have caught the eye of clubs down south too.
"This a place where I’ve been quite admired by everybody at the club and it’s a nice feeling," Shankland explained to BBC Scotland.
READ MORE: Celtic thrash Kilmarnock to win the Scottish Premiership title
"But as everybody knows I‘m going into the last year of my contract and the summer will probably be the time when conversations will be had between myself and the club.
"We’ve been really honest and open about the situation, everybody knows it. The club made an effort to keep me in January and offered me a contract, but I didn’t feel it was the right time to do it.
"This is a big decision for me and especially for my family. Getting to the age I am I really need to think about them and life after football. There’s a lot to consider, but right now I’m in a place where I’m really liked and that’s a great feeling."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel