For any club to stump up \u00a39m for your services, you must have done something right. And Cvancara – capped eight times – did plenty right at Sparta.<\/p>\n
At his best in the Czech top flight, the 6ft 3in forward used his presence, pace and power to devastating effect, while he was also clinical.<\/p>\n
Netting 24 times in 39 starts, a goals-per-minute ratio of around 131, triggered interest from Gladbach, who brought Cvancara to the Bundesliga in the summer of 2023.<\/p>\n
The forward’s career stalled in Germany, though, scoring just eight goals in 54 appearances, most of which have come from the bench.<\/p>\n
But his time at Gladbach will be remembered most for being at the centre of an extraordinary team dispute at the end of a challenging season last year.<\/p>\n
It was claimed that Cvancara was a disruptive influence in the dressing room and that his team-mates had demanded he was excluded from the squad.<\/p>\n
The striker responded by admitting he was not happy at the club and revealed he wanted to go out on loan, a statement later labelled “a mistake” by the club’s then sporting director.<\/p>\n
It was not the first time the forward felt the need to publicly defend his character. Two years ago, he said: “People say I am out of my mind and that I lack humility.<\/p>\n
“And yet none of them actually know me personally. None of them have ever asked me what I’ve been through in my life and why I’m the way I am on the pitch and in life.”<\/p>\n
Amid one of the wildest Scottish football seasons in recent memory, with his new club key contributors, the hope for Cvancara is he can reclaim calm and form at a fractured Celtic embroiled in the chaos of the Premiership.<\/p>\n
“He’s not actually a target man,” said O’Neill. “He’s not the John Hartson type.<\/p>\n
“He is quick and he’s agile and wants to prove himself. But if you think he’s the immediate answer to any problem we have, I’m not sure I want to throw that sort of responsibility on him.”<\/p>\n
Cvancara’s first assignment in Scotland is likely to be a visit to leaders Hearts on Sunday, a game absolutely stacked with pressure for the defending champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For any club to stump up \u00a39m for your services, you must have done something right. And Cvancara…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-256883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}