Tomas Cvancara arrives at Celtic with nightmare spells at Borussia Monchengladbach and Antalyaspor hanging around his neck.
The Czech international striker has joined Celtic amid all the chatter of Cvancara’s poor performances in the Bundesliga.
Cvancara has struggled to capture the form that made Gladbach shell out €10m to buy him from Sparta Prague.
And now that Celtic have announced the striker, there is important context fans must be made aware about his spell in Germany and Turkey
ACSOM’s John ‘Yogi’ Hughes delivers a brilliant summation of the Celtic first-team striker’s nightmare two seasons.
The truth about Tomas Cvancara’s Gladbach nightmare
As Celtic fans get excited about Cvancara, Big John shot down the complete negativity he’s seen online about Martin O’Neill’s new signing.
Big John said on A Celtic State of Mind, “Well, I found out that people lose their minds over a bit of information, so that’s unsurprising really. So the information that we have is about his time at Gladbach, right? Not about his potential, really, because we don’t know that.
“I would also point out, if he had a great time at Gladbach, he wouldn’t be coming to us. So I think that’s pretty understandable.
“So our man on the ground there, and this is his opinion, said, ‘I’ve seen every minute of every game that Čvančara has played for Gladbach, half of them in person. Here’s my scouting report for what it’s worth.
‘He’s been a complete disaster at Gladbach, signed for nine to 10 million euro from Sparta. It’s never been clear exactly how much, but that is a big fee by Gladbach standards.
‘Scored a screamer on his debut and also a last-minute penalty in the same game to secure four all-draw outspurt.
“But only a handful of goals since then, although one was a last-minute header to win a game at versus Union Berlin.
‘There was a dressing room revolt against him in April this year, as top players went to the coach to say he was disruptive.
‘He was shipped out to Antalyaspor in August, but they stopped paying his wages, so he’s back in Gladbach, but will not play for the first team again this season.
‘Good-ish in the air, might be okay in Scotland, but I’ve seen him in numerous one-on-ones with keepers, and he’s never scored.
‘He was a Czech international at one time, but not anymore.
“Looks like a giraffe and very fast, has a real burst of pace, likes the ball to his feet to run onto. Not a target man to hold the ball up. I wouldn’t touch him, but he might do something in Scotland.
‘Gladbach want rid and would be happy to see a million and him off the wage bill. The former DOF never quite recovered from signing him. Gladbach fans will be delighted to see the back of him, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a success in Glasgow.”
Tomas Cvancara’s brutal time at Antalyaspor
A half season on loan at Antalyaspor awaited Cvancara, and here Yogi explains the ridiculous situation he was put under in Turkey.
John continued, “Following up other context on that, because again, there’s two sides to every story.
“So this season, this is someone else commenting, for four of the five months he was playing for Antalyaspor in Turkey, he was unpaid.
“They’re having serious financial difficulties, so they weren’t targeting him. Do you know what I mean?
“He eventually returned to Gladbach only after appealing to FIFA to terminate the loan. Can’t imagine that was incredibly motivating environment for him.
“In the previous season at Gladbach, he was getting around 10 to 15 minutes per game on average.
“Two goals in 28 games doesn’t look great, but minutes wise, he only played the equivalent of five or six full 90-minute games during that period. Maybe unfair to judge him whilst he’s speeding on scraps.
“The season before, his first at Gladbach started reasonably well. He scored three goals in one assist in his first four games.
“Then unfortunately tore his ankle ligaments mid-season and struggled to recover.
“The two previous seasons at Sparta Prague were very successful, averaging roughly a goal or assist every other game in both seasons.
“I don’t know if he’ll ever be prolific, but his height, strength and hold-up play are unlike any player we’ve had for quite some time now, fingers crossed. So there you have it.”
Cvancara told to grasp Celtic opportunity
With Celtic needing a striker and Cvancara getting the opportunity to salvage his career, Yogi tells him to take this chance as it will never come around again.
Big John said, “It’s basically two opinions about what happened in Gladbach and one justification for what happened at Gladbach.
“He was played out of position. The reason why the players went and played and say he was being disruptive is because they punted him out to the wing because they signed a top quality striker, who was in the German set up, I believe, and they punted him out to the wing.
“He took the huff and he wasn’t taking it well and was falling out with his teammates. So that’s what happened there. There is context to everything.
“Obviously, we’re not getting a guy who’s on fire in the Bundesliga. So, what we have to look at is can he replicate that Sparta form?
“He’s had two and a half pretty poor years, a difficult time, injury and for him.
“And you have to hope that he sees this as a massive, massive opportunity to turn his career around.
“Because where his career is going now isn’t anywhere great. And he’s had a very rough time.”
You can watch Big John’s class sumation in full below:
That is some great insight on the striker and, hopefully, gives Celtic supporters some much-needed background on who they are getting.
NEXT UP: READ TOMAS CVANCARA’S FIRST CELTIC WORDS
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