David

The jury is still very much out on Kettlewell for me. I know he did well for us in the second half of last season, but I put a lot of that down to Van Veen hitting a mental run of form. I'm not so sure we'd have gotten to where we ended up without that. As some will already know, I had my doubts about Kettlewell from the off. His record at Ross County when he got the job on his own was honking. The one thing he has in his favour is that he really does sound like someone who knows what they're talking about. His media stint wasn't an accident, he's very articulate and good in front of the camera. But all of that means nothing if he's not able to deliver. And thus far, in his first full season, I've not been overly impressed. I won't mention his signings, because I know that annoys people, but anyone who honestly thought the guys we signed to play up front would come good were either incredibly naive or just plain stupid. I don't think we have the personnel to turn this around to any great measure, and sadly, I think he'll be gone before the end of the season.

We can't judge a goalkeeper playing at Motherwell on how the international manager would rate him. In all reality, our goalkeeper shouldn't be near the international squad most of the time regardless of who he is. Kelly's form lately hasn't been great, and he probably knows that. But, a club like Motherwell can't afford to have two keepers of Kelly's level at the club. It just isn't feasible. Kelly is first choice until he leaves, most likely.

What gives you so much confidence in Oxborough? He could be absolutely honking.

And that's not to say that Bair doesn't have a role to play. As much as I don't think he's worth the paper his contract is printed on, he's someone we can fire on if we're holding a lead or looking to shore up in the last 15 minutes or so and he can do his running around and whatever else he does. But if we want to actually score goals and win football games? He's not going to be figuring much.

Bair doesn't win headers or really get much on target. It's not in his arsenal. At absolute best he can do the donkey work for a much more well rounded striker. Which is why I thought that, given a chance and a run of games, he and Shaw may be worth looking at until Biereth gets back to full fitness. Once Biereth and Wilkinson are fully fit that's the two I'd go with every time. If we use two. If we use one then it would need to be one of them.

If he does that, then we have to recognise that Bair isn't a project and is no longer a 4th choice player being stuck in there due to injury. He's then one of our first-choice strikers.

Yeah, but if Biereth isn't available, then he's our best option. Far from ideal, but it is what it is for now.

They are all grouped together in a standing section at Celtic Park, so they could likely buy tickets in smaller groups dotted around the other sections of the stadium, but it wouldn't be the same. They tend to only act up in numbers and in their section. If one or two of them act up elsewhere in the stadium they'll easily be identified and dealt with. However, knowing what they seem to be like, I'd imagine they'll refuse to attend in any other capacity as some sort of protest and "struggle" against the "capitalists" that run their club.

I don't think that will be the case. It's surely going to be Wilkinson up top if we're going with one.

Bair can be utilised from the bench, see if that role suits him better.

I'd like to see Shaw and Wilkinson start up front together.

I know I'm not really meant to be discussing Bair, but the whole idea of him starting due to injuries isn't really true, is it? He's started every single one of our eight league matches thus far. In two of those games, he started alongside Wilkinson (which he also did in the cup game), and in one he also started alongside Efford. Shaw has been on the bench for five of our games this season and has never started but has always come on at some point. There's never been any talk about him being injured or not up to playing a full 90 to my recollection. In our last three games, we've had both Wilkinson and Shaw on the bench. Okay, Wilkinson may have been coming back from injury, but again, he was available, alongside Shaw. At some point, we need to realise that Bair hasn't been used because we had no other option up front. He has been playing ahead of Shaw for five games, and ahead of Wilkinson for the last two or three because Kettlewell prefers to use him up front on his own instead of one of the other two, or alongside one of the other two. This is more of a tactical and personal preference choice by the manager than something forced upon him. Which is fine, he's the manager and he makes the decisions. But he has to be held accountable when he gets it wrong, and it looks to me like he's gotten it wrong the past few games.

Nah, that's a bit of a strawman argument there in my opinion. It's incredibly lazy to take any argument against a player and shoot it down with "Oh, you're just doing what Steelboy does..." in an attempt to silence the debate. That's bollocks, and you know it. Steelboy has an irrational dislike of certain players. I don't. I'm arguing against his results and stats, which is totally different. If we were persevering with Wilkinson, Shaw or Obika up front and they had managed a single goal in eight starts and rarely looked like scoring I'd be saying the exact same thing about them. And I doubt I'd be alone. In fact, in Wilkinson's limited game time for us I've seen more people be critical of him than anyone has been of Bair. Bair has averaged about one goal every eleven games in his career. That was roughly how many he was scoring before he started his first game for us, and he's doing absolutely nothing to make me think he'll do any better here. If we continue playing him he'll maybe get us around 3 league goals this season. At best. So no, bin the strawman nonsense. I'm debating with the points I quote in my posts. It's how an internet forum works. People say things and other people reply and argue against their viewpoint. The post I quoted was talking about how much Bair adds to the team, and how others should receive as much criticism for not scoring as he does. So again, no, I'm not debating with myself. I've learned of late that if I want to even hint at criticism of Bair I need to make sure I tread carefully lest I be tarred with the irrational hatred of players or "personal vendetta" brush. That's why I always try to quote the exact points I'm replying to. What would I be saying if Bair missed those chances? I'd actually be impressed. Because for him to miss those chances would mean he'd managed to find his way into the position of actually getting them to begin with. Bair can go through almost entire games and not register a single shot on target. You know the old saying. You miss 100% of the chances you don't take. Or in his case, the chances you don't get to begin with. Both Shaw and Wilkinson, from what I've seen, and their career history, look to me like players who could get us between 7 to 10 league goals if they were given a decent run in the team, which is around average for a decent striker at our level. They've shown in the past that they know how to score goals, and you can see that when they have appeared for us. Sure, they miss chances. All strikers do. But the fact they actually find themselves in a position to get those chances is enough for me to want to see them play. They came on late in the game when our midfield was basically fucked. They'd been trying to cope with a much better quality of player all game, plus they were being relied upon to pose any kind of forward threat. Look, all I'll say in closing is that I was critical of us signing Bair at the start of the season. I was told not to be critical until we'd at least seen him play. Now I'm being told that, after seeing him play, my criticism, which is based entirely on his abilities as a player, is "irrational" and a "personal vendetta." When we continue to play a striker who never even looks like scoring, I'm going to voice my concerns. It's as simple as that. If people don't like it? Keep scrolling.

I'm fully in agreement that we need to give Shaw and/or Wilkinson an extended opportunity. Either on their own or even with Bair. Like I said, he's good at certain things, but those things don't include being a goal threat, and we need that from our forward line. Teams who don't score goals end up in the shit. Could we run with Shaw and Bair up top? That would mean dropping a midfielder. Who gets dropped? And can the forwards then chip in to help cover that man less in midfield when we're under pressure? If and when Wilkinson, Obika and Biereth regain full fitness we can see what they have to offer. But, we need to be in a position to get goals against Livingston, St Johnstone, and Ross County. And we know that Martindale and Malky Mackay in particular will have seen how we're playing just now and will know that if we run the same team as we did against Rangers and Celtic, they'll know they just have to swamp the midfield and stop Slattery and/or Spittal from getting into advanced positions too often.

We do. We could be playing with Bair and Shaw. But who do we drop from midfield to accommodate?

Personally, I'm not being critical of Bair for not scoring against Celtic or Rangers. I'm being critical because he never really looks like he's ever going to score. Apart from the odd occasion, I don't see him even in a threatening position. I'll say it again, he's a striker. He's not expected to be prolific, but surely he's expected to score some goals? Or at least get into the positions we see strikers get in to? He had that single chance because he doesn't move around like a striker. He doesn't find his way into the positions that strikers should. It's been the main criticism of him for most of his professional career. Virtually every fan of every team he's ever played for has said the same thing. He's a hard worker, he covers a lot of ground, but he doesn't ever really look like scoring goals. And when we can see this, the opposition sees this. And when they see this, they adjust their gameplan accordingly, because they can set their defenders out differently than they would when playing a team whose forward player is a known threat. On Slattery and Spittal, that's because they're midfielders. That's their primary position. If they can chip in with some goals then all the better, but why would anyone be critical of our midfielders when they're basically being asked to not only do their job in midfield but also take up the mantle as goalscorers because our forward doesn't know how to score goals? Slattery and Spittal will face criticism when they don't do their job in midfield. They shouldn't be expected to pick up the slack for a guy who isn't capable of doing his job of scoring goals. Shaw has had zero starts so far. Not one. He's played a combined 60 minutes of football all season, with it coming in bursts of 10-20 minutes here and there. I'll judge him when he's had a run of starts similar to that being given to Bair. If Shaw can't even look like scoring after the same number of starts as Bair then I'll be critical of him. How is he being measured by a different bar? He's a striker. He's being measured by how many goals he scores, like every other striker in the professional game. In the past, if a striker isn't getting goals, we look to see if he's at least getting into those positions and looks like he's getting close. Bair isn't. He rarely looks like he knows where he has to be in order to score a goal. Having watched him in most of our games this season, it's blatantly obvious why his scoring record isn't good. He simply doesn't have the instinct or mindset of a striker. It's quite funny really, because in the past our fans would slag the shit out of Van Veen for being "lazy." The guy knew where he had to be to score goals. he could do nothing for 60 minutes, then be in the right place at the right time to grab two goals and win us a game or get us a draw that looked unlikely. But Bair gets praised because he runs around a lot and comes deep to make simple passes. All the while the opposition defence is having an easy day because while he's running around and looking busy, he's nowhere near being a threat to the actual goal. All they need to do is watch for Spittal or Slattery coming from midfield. But it seems some of our fans prefer a player who looks busy and "runs his socks off" to a player who has an instinct and knows how to play the game with intelligence. Such a player is branded "lazy." Van Veen didn't fall deep to make a simple pass because he knew that wouldn't get him any closer to scoring a goal, which was his job. Will they get picked over him? As has been mentioned elsewhere, it seems there's some doubt over Wilkinson being the guy to replace him. He's apparently too slow, and has been written off as shite? Obika? What will he provide? He's injury-prone, and I would wager a decent sum of money that he spends more game days in the stands injured than he does in the team. He was brought in last season as back-up. Biereth is an unknown. It's unfair to put any real pressure on a kid who's played 15 professional games. If he provides some goals, then great, but I don't know if he's going to be the guy to lead the line. We better hope that Spittal and Slattery have the season of their lives because we're going to need them to.

That kind of system works because they're all using midfielders who, and I apologise if this seems negative, are really good at that kind of thing, coupled with players in the forward position that actually still scored goals. There was mention of Dykes and how he is used for Scotland. Dykes scores goals. He's hit double figures in two seasons in the English Championship, and also in his lone season in the Scottish Premiership. Comparisons with City don't hold up either, even if we use perspective for the obviously differing levels. Whenever Pep played with the midfielders coming into scoring positions, he used actual goal threats in the lone forward position. Be it Mahrez or Sterling. What he didn't use was a big lump who's only decent at passing and knockdowns. It's also worth noting that even in those seasons where City employed that system, the guy who was playing the lone forward role actually scored a lot of their goals. Be it Mahrez, Sterling, Ferran Torres, or Gabriel Jesus. I will say it again, if our tactics for this season are using a striker who doesn't score goals providing knockdowns for two midfielders who really aren't known for their goalscoring abilities, we're going to run into trouble. Teams already know Bair poses virtually no threat in front of goal. So their defenders don't need to really worry about him getting the ball and causing damage. All they need to do is keep an eye on the midfielders coming forward and look for Bair playing his passes to them. That kind of system works when the opposition has to deal with goalscoring midfielders coming in from deep, plus deal with a forward who may not be an out-and-out striker, but who is also dangerous in front of goal. Whichever way we slice it, be it two up top, or one up front and asking the midfielders to chip in with goals, we need to employ a striker who actually scores some goals. It doesn't need to be Van Veen last season level. But they need to pose a threat and actually look like they could score goals. I'm all for using a system where we don't rely on a single person hitting 15-20 goals a season because we rarely have a striker of that ability at our club, but there's a difference between asking the midfield to chip in and get more goals than they might usually get alongside a striker who can even hit between 9-11 or so, and asking the midfielders to basically supply the vast majority of our goals. In previous seasons we've had Tony Watt, Devante Cole, and Van Veen provide between 9-12 goals in a season. That surely isn't unreasonable? Unless our budget is markedly lower than it was those seasons, why can't we bring in someone of that level again? Why are we saying all we can afford now is the equivalent of the guys we'd bring in late on to make up the numbers usually? In previous seasons guys like Obika, Shaw, and Wilkinson would be extra bodies to fill out the squad. They'd be players brought in to cover for the likes of Van Veen, Watt, Woolery etc. The young lad from Arsenal would have been a bonus, someone who can hopefully do a job for us. But we're all seemingly pinning our hopes on a kid who's played 15 senior games coming back from injury and being our main striker. And I know it really annoys people, but I'll say it again. In previous seasons someone like Bair wouldn't have even been under consideration. I'm trying to work out if our budget is dramatically reduced to the point where the squad filler of two seasons ago is now our first team players, or if our scouting and player identification just isn't at the level it used to be? It has to be one or the other. And I also know that some people don't like it when I post a lot of words, so I'll end it there.

He's scored twice as many goals as Bair, in fewer games and without getting a real proper run of games. He's also scored over 50 goals in his career, so he at least knows where the net is. Again, I've heard it said constantly that Bair is being played because there are no other options, he's fourth choice and so on. But he isn't, is he? He wouldn't be playing ahead of Wilkinson or Shaw if he is. Like them or not, they have proven that they know how to score goals. If our plan is to have a striker who doesn't score goals, and who isn't expected to score goals, but instead lump the goal responsibilities onto Slattery and Spittal, I think we're going to run into problems eventually. We need to choose between playing two up front, one of which I assume will be our fourth choice project and someone else who can score goals, or playing a lone striker. Who that lone striker should be? Who knows.

If that is the case, and it's the system we're going with, then Bair actually isn't the 4th choice striker who's only playing due to injuries? Or are we going to see Wilkinson picked over him now that he's fit? Because the truth is, if we're relying on the bulk of our goals coming from Spittal and Slattery, I don't know how successful that's going to be.

The question is, who plays up front? If it's Bair then we need to rely on our midfield not only doing their job in their own area of the park but also scoring goals. If Bair is going to be effective we need to play a striker who knows how to score goals up front with him, to benefit from the much-ballyhooed knockdowns and work rate. Doing that means dropping a midfielder though, which isn't ideal. I'd drop Bair for Wilkinson if he's fit. We need a goal threat further up the park that isn't a midfielder.

So we can be critical of Wilkinson when he's started 6 games, including early league cup run-outs, and also claim that Shaw isn't up to the job after a whopping 0 starts and a total of 60 minutes of football, but when it comes to other players we're best to give them time to settle in and see how they get on after a few months? If Bair's job is not to actually score goals but instead provide knockdowns and suchlike, then why hasn't Shaw gotten a single start alongside him up top? Surely the idea is to have him provide those knockdowns to a striker who can score goals, no? I've seen it said that we'll see things improve when Kettlewell can finally deploy two strikers, but he's had Shaw available and has been using him from the bench as a direct replacement for Bair?

Paton all day long. Miller played well too.

Not a great result, but if we can take 5 or 6 points from our next three this game will be forgotten about.

A shame, as this is the worst Celtic team we've played in a while. And they probably won't be as bad as this next time around. But hey, we played well! Nice passes, solid in defence etc. That's what matters. A point is what we deserved at the least. We could have had all three.

I'd be really surprised if we went with two up top against Celtic. Our midfield would get overrun.