Begovic for Dieng, a sign of the QPR times – Signing Monday, 17th Jul 2023 17:47 by Clive Whittingham QPR have moved quickly to replace the outgoing Seny Dieng with 36-year-old Everton goalkeeper Asmir Begovic on a free transfer. FactsAsmir Begovic is a vastly experienced 36-year-old goalkeeper from Bosnia and Herzegovina. His father, also Asmir, played as a goalkeeper for Leotar and Iskra Bugojno before the family were forced to flee from the war-torn country to first Germany and, later when Asmir Jnr was ten, to Canada. His youth football performances there earned him a call up to the Canadian U17 squad, and he represented the country through youth levels and at the U20 World Cup in 2007, before earning his first call-up to the full squad aged 20 as back up to first choice Lars Hirschfeld. Fifa’s relaxation of the rules on switching nations in 2009 opened the door to him playing for Bosnia, where he has since earned 63 caps including starting all three of their games at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. He was voted the country’s footballer of the year in 2012. Those youth performances also alerted several Premier League clubs and at 17 he was invited for a trial by both Portsmouth and Spurs. Pompey were suitably impressed to offer a permanent contract to him two days into his trial there, before his try-out at White Hart Lane could begin. His immigration status, however, meant his early days at Fratton Park were complicated. With no EU passport and initially only here on an ‘education visa’, he rattled through loan spells with La Louviere in Belgium, Macclesfield in Macclesfield, Bournemouth, two spells with Yeovil, and one with Ipswich. Owing to David James’ presence at Pompey, Begovic, while clearly talented, was restricted to 16 starts and a sub appearance across five years on the South Coast between 2005 and 2010. Amidst the club’s financial collapse he was then bought for £3.25m by their Premier League rivals Stoke City, where he really made his name in this country with 172 appearances across five years. Spurs again had a sniff, and in fact had paid £1m up front for him as part of the deal for Younes Kaboul – money Pompey were ordered to pay back to Tottenham by a tribunal. Coming on as a sub for Thomas Sorensen at Chelsea for his Stoke debut he conceded five times, but things improved from there. Having lost Seny Dieng, QPR are getting another keeper with goalscoring form – a 98-yarder over Artur Boruc against Southampton after 13 seconds of a November 2013 meeting made the Guinness Book of Records as football’s longest ever. Given his obvious ability, reputation and relatively young age it was perhaps a surprise that he went down the admittedly lucrative path of being a second choice goalkeeper at one of the so-called ‘big clubs’ as soon as he did. Following an £8m move to Chelsea in July 2015 he went from, at one point, not missing a game in two years of action at Stoke to making only 17 league starts in two seasons along with a clutch out outings in various cups and European games. He picked up a Premier League winner’s medal and FA Cup runner up prize while at Stamford Bridge.
In the summer of 2017 big-spending Premier League side Bournemouth paid £10m to take him to Dean Court, and he was ever present in the league in his first season. A run of defeats and poor goals the following season saw him dropped midway through the campaign, ironically for Boruc who he’d lobbed at for Stoke a few years prior. He spent the first half of 2019/20 on loan in Azerbaijan with Qarabag (paper or plastic?) as part of a title winning side, and the second half as an understudy at AC Milan, before returning to Bournemouth to be first choice in their 2020/21 Championship campaign which ended in a play-off semi-final defeat at Brentford where an attempt to shithouse away the whole of the second leg in West London under tactical magician Jonathan Woodgate, and Begovic’s antics within that, really had to be seen to be believed. It's been back to the bench since then at Everton where he has spent two years covering England’s Jordan Pickford. His ten appearances for the Goodison Park club (seven in his first season, three in the most recent one) include a start in the Toffee’s 2-2 draw at Loftus Road in the League Cup which ended in a defeat on penalties. Having just turned 36 in June, and with a new soccer academy recently opened in Chiswick, a move to West London and the chance to be first choice at this late stage in his career has brought him to QPR on a one-year contract following his release from Everton. Reaction“It’s something that’s been worked on the past few weeks and I am really excited to be here and can’t wait to get started. In this day and age with social media it’s difficult to keep these secrets, but out of all the conversations I had with different clubs I really felt this was the right move for myself and my family. To see the positive reaction from the fans was really exciting but now the hard work starts. We have to make sure we hit the ground running on the training ground and in friendlies to have a really good start to the season. “My mentality has never changed, I always see myself as No.1 and I really want to come here and make a difference. Gareth is a straight shooter which I really like, he knows what he wants - hard work and character first and foremost, and those are the sort of things that really appeal to me. He has been in management for many years now and he wants to bring the success he’s already achieved to this football club, so I am really excited to be part of his team.” Asmir Begovic “This is a huge signing for QPR and for me personally. People I talk to in the game cannot recommend his professionalism, the way he is around the place and the leadership he’ll bring highly enough. Asmir is going to add so much. I’m really looking forward to working with him and the boys are excited for him to come in as well. Seny has been magnificent for this football club over the years and hopefully he goes and takes his chance at Middlesbrough. Asmir is coming in as our number one and I am hoping he can be the first of many names to join this club for the upcoming season in which I intend to change the whole feeling around the place. To have someone with the presence of Asmir Begović walking into the building is brilliant and I want to thank Gavin Ward, Lee Hoos and the board who have all played a massive part in making it happen.” Gareth Ainsworth OpinionA club asset at a good age devalued and flogged off for whatever we can get to him amidst a declining contract, to be replaced with a big name, high-earning 36-year-old, at the end of his career, who offers no sell-on value and blocks the first team path for younger players who do have a longer term future… It’s a very QPR thing to do, and exactly the sort of transfer moves that usually have this column jumping up and down, squeaming and squeaming until we are sick. I am going to do a little bit of that initially, because this indeed the latest bleak check into QPR’s current reality. Seny Dieng was poor last season, but with the mitigation that the defence in front of him was made of Playdough (no Rob, it’s not for eating). He was, overall, a good goalkeeper for us, and a great improvement on what had gone in between him and Alex Smithies. He was a genuine sellable asset, in whom there had been some past interest from Everton and others. We hung on too long, told the world we weren’t interested in receiving offers for any players, his form tanked, and with it his value as his contract started to run towards its end. A little bit too much footballer lifestyle, and little bit too little footballer, not helping with that in his latter months. We’ve ended up selling him from a position of weakness, in a buyer’s market, for £2m, when really we should have been looking at more like twice that. Much like the situation we found ourselves in when Lyndon Dykes fell ill and we had to bring in Chris Martin, the lack of any sort of development prospect roaring up behind Dieng to push for his place and now replace him is rather stark. Our goalkeeping recruitment has too often turned up players like Dillon Barnes and Jordan Archer who are never going to be good enough for this level, even as back up. Barnes (who got three years of money out of us) was so poor the club quietly didn’t even include him in the 25-man squad, preferring instead to leave the spot vacant in case the worst did happen to Dieng at which point they could bring in a free agent instead – which they did with Kieran Westwood (a year retired at that point) in the collapse of the 2021/22 campaign after another free pick up, David Marshall, had also failed. Joe Walsh, signed with some degree of satisfaction and hype from Gillingham where he was rated as a big prospect, hasn’t played a single minute of first team for us in two years and has only had loan experience at the level of Hampton, Dorking and Maidenhead – though he was, admittedly, unlucky to have a broken hand at the time of the Marshall/Westwood debacle. Murphy Mahoney did make it into the team during that spell, but then played not one minute of football anywhere for anybody last season burning off a year and is only now getting a loan at Swindon. As when Dykes got pneumonia, there is not a single cab on the rank ready to go at a so-called “development club” and so we’re turning to a 30-something-year-old in desperation. But when you combine all of that with our present FFP status, this is a necessary move, and given Begovic’s personality, pedigree and ability really about as good as we could have ever possibly hoped for. Yes, kids, it’s that bit again where I mention that we have a £25m loss for 21/22 in our rolling three-year calculation, and it’s staying in a year longer than the Eze sale which offsets it. Without a big sale this season needs to be unbelievably frugal, with a wage bill hacked back aggressively, any half decent transfer fee accepted for any player, and millstones like Stefan Johansen and Niko Hamalainen sent off to live on a farm. In that circumstance if you can get £2m for a goalkeeper who, as we say, did not play well last season, and then replace him with a short-term free transfer of this standard, experience and quality on acceptable wages then that’s something of an easy win and we move on to the other nine first team spots that need immediate surgery. If they can indeed wrestle our losses down to where they need to be, and battle their way to Championship survival, then with less financial pressures next summer we’ll be able to look again at the goalkeeper spot.
I’m personally disappointed we weren’t looking at Luton’s Harry Isted. He was absolutely outstanding on loan at Barnsley last season, had plenty of growth left in him at 26, and was available on a free transfer this summer. He’s subsequently been picked up by the often savvy recruitment operation at Charlton. I’d have really sat here and gone out to bat for that signing. We won’t escape this FFP doom cycle without selling players, that remains true, so packing the team with free transfers, former Wycombe players, cheap cuts, and trying to squeeze through may solve our short term problem, but the situation will only keep re-occurring without serious player sales. It’s just simple maths. It is, however, becoming clear what this season is going to look like, play like and be about. QPR are going to spend next to nothing, recoup everything they can, hack away at everything, put every back they have to the wall, and hope that Gareth Ainsworth can Gareth Ainsworth us to survival in exactly the manner he used to battle the odds at Wycombe. In that environment, the goalkeeper is going to be Busy. On occasions, he’s going to be fucking peppered. There are going to be some long afternoons and evenings between those posts. I may like Harry Isted, and his age and profile, but do you take the risk on a 26-year-old with two Championship appearances to his name to swim rather than sink? I’d still say yes, personally, and the lack of a ready-made Dieng replacement in-house depresses me. But then I wanted to sign Dusko Tosic instead of Clint Hill. I guess for now I/we need to be more realistic and pragmatic and among the been-there, seen-that, done-it brigade Begovic must be one of the better keepers available. Getting somebody this good and experienced on our budget is something of an eyebrow raiser. One can only imagine he’s earned his money and it’s the location and regular football attracting him because the weekly wage he’s been picking up at his previous three clubs will be something approaching an annual salary on our budget this year. His lack of action for Everton is a concern, but he was a regular at Bournemouth in this league just before that. We’ve also spoken repeatedly about the lack of leadership and voice in the dressing room, Chris Martin called out the lack of professionalism and dedication he found here in his brief spell, the whole atmosphere and mood around the place needs blitzing and changing. Begovic’s experience, intelligence and voice could be a key part of that culture shift. There have also been examples in this division of clubs in similar levels of shit (Birmingham) getting a good nine months out of keepers at a similar stage of their careers (John Ruddy). As a Dutch philosopher once opined, it is what it is. If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via PayPal The Twitter @loftforwords Pictures – Action Images Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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