As one door closes, a Celar door opens – Signing Friday, 19th Jul 2024 19:33 by Clive Whittingham and Greg Spires As QPR bid farewell to Sinclair Armstrong, they immediately spend a chunky fee from Bristol City on Slovenian international Žan Celar. FactsŽan Celar is a 25-year-old, 6ft 1in tall centre forward from Kranj in Slovenia (mountains, dumplings, stag dos). His youth career reads like a veritable smorgasbord of the great and the good of European football – all of whom feel like somebody that might have punted a QPR team out of the UEFA Cup on away goals at some point in the 1980s. Šenčur play in the Slovenian third division, Triglav Kranj in the Slovenian second division, and Maribor are a Slovenian team you may have heard of. Enough was achieved along that ladder ascent to tempt #properfootballclub Roma to bring him into their U19 set up in 2018. There was even an appearance for the first team in the Italian capital too. Four minutes as a substitute in a 2-1 home win against Empoli in March 2019 – a rare own goal from Jesus in that game. See, nobody’s perfect. Typical loans in the lower reaches of Italian football followed. Two goals (both in the cup) in a dozen appearances for Cittadella in Serie B during the first half of 2019/20, and then a year and a half at Cremonese where the best we can ascertain he scored four times in 38 games (it’s a Wikipedia stat, so treat with a pinch of salt). In 2021 he moved for an undisclosed fee to Lugano in the Swiss league, and immediately endeared himself to the faithful there with a double goal haul in his first away game – a 3-2 away win at Lucerne. He bagged ten goals in 31 appearances in his first season, 16 in 37 in his second, and 15 in 48 in his third when he was the top scorer in the league. In 2022 he was part of the Lugano team that motored through six rounds of the Swiss Cup, including a dramatic quarter final win against Young Boys (stop it) to win the trophy for the fourth time with a 4-1 victory over St Kevin Gallen in the final at the Wankdorf Stadium (I’m serious, I will turn this car around and there’ll be no Žan Celar for anybody, understand?). Celar scored one of the goals in the final, like a ledge.
Celar has netted 16 goals in 46 appearances for Slovenia’s national youth teams in every age group from U16s to U21s. He made his full international debut in November 2021 against Cyprus in a World Cup qualifying match and made three late substitute appearances in this summer’s European Championships in draws against Denmark, England and Portugal. His 13 caps have yet to yield a goal, however. He has signed for QPR on the now sadly typical undisclosed fee on a contract of undisclosed length. To be honest I’m surprised they’ve admitted to us that they’ve signed him at all. Analysis @Greg_SpiresMovement & Physicality The Slovenian striker has a wide variety of runs and movements in his locker, showcasing the ability to run the channels, go in-behind, hold his run for a cut-back etc. His attacking movement is intelligent and he’s great at understanding his role as either a primary or decoy runner – committing to his role in both cases, in an unselfish manner. He's got enough pace to run in-behind and stretch defences in the channel but isn’t tearaway quick. Quite often when the ball is in wide areas, he tries to position himself just behind one of the CBs in order to draw the other one in to marking him and causing confusion inside the 6 yard-box. Highly intelligent stuff that allows him to dart in front of defenders in their moment of confusion or as they’re handing over responsibility – allowing Celar to score as the ball comes across the face of goal. The one downside of having such a plethora of runs to make, is deciding which one to make and when. The Slovenian is a strong decision-maker in the final third generally, but there were several occasions that he made a run that really narrowed the space for himself. Decision-making is a skill that needs constant work and I hope he’s open minded and receptive to some of the plans that our coaching staff have. If so, he’ll be scoring with ease in the Championship. Finishing Celar can finish with both feet from inside the box and isn’t shy of using his head to bury the ball either. These two finishes below (one pen and one open play) show his composure and conviction really nicely. Approaches the ball calmly, picks his spot, doesn’t overhit the ball and strokes it into the corner of the net. Many a time we’ve seen that skyed over the bar into the away end at Loftus Road – times might be changing. (Wor Jordan has entered the chat – ed) Celar is confident enough to take on shots with both feet depending on the situation and shows no real bias for either foot. He is able to adjust his body to the situation, shooting from angles that give him the most power and highest chance of striking the ball cleanly. He strikes it with some venom, but doesn’t solely rely on this for finishes, which I think shows maturity and a well-roundedness to his game. One limitation that I can see in his game is the inability to consistently create chances for himself. He didn’t show the capability to beat players in a 1v1 with conviction and he relied on good service to score last season. One of the defences offered of Lyndon Dykes has been a lack of, or poor, service. It’s not necessarily a problem as long as the service continues, which leaves a question mark around how we’ll set up or gameplan to get the best out of Celar as well as Chair, Andersen etc. Forward Play Being a front man, and likely a lone front man in this Cifuentes system, requires more than just finishing and running. Thankfully, Celar showed impressive capability to play with his back to goal and bring others into play. He isn’t a target man but is happy to get his back into a defender and then roll them as the ball comes through or be used as a backboard to play it off to a runner in-behind. He reminded me a bit of Dykes in the way that he uses all parts of his body to control the ball and bring it under control. He is able to hold the ball up and play back to goal but from what I could see, he looked most comfortable running channels and stretching CBs across the pitch. Agility is one of his most underrated assets too, enabling him to spin defenders and shift his balance well to evade pressure. He utilises his acceleration and agility to draw in defenders and then change direction or spring away, with or without the ball. Conclusion It’s been a while since we’ve signed a striker for a fee that Twitter has gotten all hot and bothered over. Celar is a natural finisher and a ‘proper’ centre-forward that has a bit of Charlie Austin about his movement into the box and in the final third. This is not a prediction that he’s the new Charlie, but if he’s in the right place when the ball drops – I’ve got confidence that Celar will bury it. I’m intrigued to see how he combines with Chair and our other midfielders though as I know we’re all hanging our hopes on him to bag 10+ league goals next season. Reaction“I can’t wait to start, join the team, join my new team-mates, start training and start matches. I think I will adapt well. I know there are a lot of games but I like to play games, so I can’t wait. The next step now is important for me and I think this is the right place. I will try to do what I have been doing and hopefully I can help the team with my goals. I have had enough of a rest. I am very excited to start training and to start matches with my new team-mates.” -Žan Celar “I am delighted on behalf of the wider club to welcome Žan into the QPR family. That Žan chose to join QPR amidst a myriad of other suitors in our division and outside of it demonstrates the level of thought put into his decision. I trust our supporters will do their best to help him feel welcome as he acclimatises to the Championship.” -ChatGP Nourry ContextAnd, so, we arrive at that exciting/terrifying moment of the summer when Queens Park Rangers have a go at signing a real live striker of their own. While signings have certainly been hit and miss in all positions since Rangers returned to the Championship nine seasons ago, no position has plagued the club quite like centre forward. Their attempts to crack the code have been wide and varied. They saw clubs like Brentford and Bristol City shopping in unfashionable European markets and returning with the likes of Neal Maupay, Jonathan Kodjia and Famara Diédhiou. Trying to grab a slice of that pie landed them with Seb Polter, and Idrissa Sylla. They saw Craig Mackail-Smith, Aaron McLean, George Boyd, Ivan Toney and others emerge from Darragh MacAnthony’s football factory at Peterborough, decided to head up the A1 for a little shopping trip of their own, and ended up paying £2.5m for Conor Washington. When Tammy Abraham and Viktor Gyokeres started carving the division apart, Rangers paid their own visit to the puppy farm and came back with… Jan Mlakar. Matt Smith tottered about for a bit under a Millwall-style Good Honest Championship Players You’ve Heard Of bite back at cultural Marxism. YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT. And every time they didn’t do it right, it just meant more time collecting more Persil tokens until they’d saved up enough to try again. In between there were loans - some of those were Nahki Wells and some of them were Tomer Hemed. Between the two, My Chemical Hugill, lethal from 25 yards, a different kind of dangerous from five. In that context perhaps their biggest failing of all came in the summer of 2020 when they had the money, and the FFP room, and came back from market with Macauley Bonne and Lyndon Dykes. I’ve always been willing to die on the hill that signing Bonne after he’d scored 11 Championship goals in a relegated side without taking penalties wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but even the Addicks were amazed at the offer QPR put in for somebody whose understanding of the offside law is about as shit hot as Lizz Truss’ grasp of economics. Spending 18 months traipsing up to Dundee to watch Lawrence Shankland and going for Dykes instead at the last minute is just careless.
A near decade-long attempt to replace Charlie Austin came closest to a successful conclusion only when Austin himself returned for a successful loan spell. Sadly, even his powers quickly waned. I have had some sympathy with the club along the way. Strikers are in high demand and short supply. I’m ten clubs into Gab Sutton’s summer Championship deep dives and every single one of them has said they need at least one striker this transfer window, if not two. Meanwhile all every little boy wants to be these days is a “ten” – something the grim academy system that trains them seems only too happy to indulge, the results of which were writ plain across every England performance at this summer’s Euros. Fans talk off-handedly about a 20-goal-a-season striker, of which there have only been 16 in the Championship over the past five years (a total that includes Toney, Mitrovic, Solanke, Watkins). To buy a proper, proven one, is to spend money QPR no longer have to spend, and to take chances elsewhere is to increase the risk of failure. For every Ollie Watkins from Exeter there are a dozen David Wheelers. Worth bearing in mind that even when QPR did have cash to splash Austin was a painfully rare success story, and further back they plumped for Mike Sheron over Clive Mendonca or Paolo Wanchope. Nevertheless, it has been frustrating to see other clubs in identical positions to us frequently find ideal forwards within our price range. Carlton Morris went to Barnsley in the summer we bought Dykes and Bonne, and he cost less money. Adebayo was playing down the road at Fulham and eventually got picked up by Luton from Walsall. Kodjia cost Bristol City £2m. Les went and watched Shankland so much he may as well have had a Dundee United season ticket, and we go with Dykes instead. Warburton was tight as arse cheeks with Brighton loan manager David Weir, and yet we get Mlakar in the same summer Gyokeres goes to Coventry. For those who believe in the curse, there’s some fertile ground here. Into that ghost story we now write the chapter of Žan Celar, the latest European randomer to be spewed out by Andy Belk and Christian Nourry’s OnlyBallers subscription. If we’re not going to do his song to OMC’s How Bizarre then he should be taken back off us. This transfer offsets with the money received from Bristol City for Sinclair Armstrong. Debate has raged all week about whether Armstrong is a breakout star waiting to happen, City have got a steal, and QPR will live to regret only getting a couple of million; or he’s a sprinter in the wrong sport, couldn’t trap a dead rat, and the deal the club has put together is tantamount to daylight robbery. Both points are entirely irrelevant, and I write that as one of his bigger fans. Armstrong is out of contract next summer, his agent has made it clear he thinks QPR undervalue his client and don’t know what they’ve got so has no intention of signing an extension. The only other two scenarios you’ve got apart from selling him now is forcing him to stay, him having a big breakout year, then you’re gutted for losing one of the country’s brightest young prospects on a free/tribunal next summer; or he sticks around, a danger to himself and others when given time to think, doesn’t develop any further, and then 12 months on you’re gutted you didn’t get £2m+ when you had the chance. The club are rightly keen to avoid another Chris Willock situation, as anybody who’s had to deal with Chris Willock’s dad would be. It’s sound business from a club that hasn’t done much of that in the past. One would hope/expect a similar thing will happen if Blackburn’s genuine interest in Dykes amounts to an actual transfer for something other than chocolate coins. Think of it like Saturday night at the Reading Walkabout – one in, one out, a lot of dodgy neck tattoos. Failing that, it’ll probably be another loan. West Ham’s Callum Marshall was mentioned in passing, but the computer said no apparently. Might just be pub chat. Meantime, while you ideally don’t want to be saying to a 25-year-old Slovenian from the Swiss league that we could really do with you hitting double figures in your first season in Championship football, that is pretty much the case. Whether he’s capable or not we’ll only find out in time but it’s exactly the sort of Preston North End Emil Riis signing that I’ve often wondered where we were in the past. His age, price point, record and numbers certainly make this worth a swing for me. I’ll just keep repressing those Adam Czerkas memories for now. I’m quite excited about it as “exactly the sort of signing we should be making”. But, then, I said that about Washington as well. If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk. The Twitter @loftforwords, @greg_spires Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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