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David

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Everything posted by David

  1. Yeah, he's not the type of player we could hope to sign permanently, I don't think. Not at the stage he's at, anyway. But he's a kid with potential. Let's hope he lives up to it with us this season.
  2. That's perfectly acceptable 😉
  3. Now, this is a proper project. 20 years old and has spent time playing in the Dutch top tier? The kind of player I'm happy to see us sign.
  4. There's no meltdown here, I'm being pretty factual and reasonable with my comments, I think. The reason I'm saying a lot about it is that people keep taking what I say and replying to it, so I then reply to them in order to continue the discussion, which is fine as it kills time until we start the real stuff this weekend. But trust me, I'm more confused and perturbed than angry. I don't really get angry about football at my age. It's important to me, but not that important. The issue I have is that while I recognise virtually every player we've ever signed has had bad seasons, usually immediately prior to them coming here, which is why we are able to get them, my issue with this signing is that outside of a season in the Norwegian second tier where he scored four goals (would we even classify that as a decent season? Is the bar so low with this guy?), Bair has only ever had stinking seasons. We've signed a player who will be 24 years old in a few weeks, so he's not a youngster, but who has pretty much done absolutely nothing for his entire career. It might just be me, but that's concerning. A player who does nothing of note in a career that has spanned four years suggests we're talking about someone who just isn't going to make the cut as a pro. As I said above, if Bair had suffered a bad season at St Johnstone but had shown something elsewhere, I could understand the signing. I've said already I look into the history of players we sign, and generally, I can see something that makes me think, "Okay, I can understand why we're giving this guy a shot." Not this time. This isn't a player who has had a bad season, like Stevie May or any other player you wish to pick as an example. This a player who's only ever had bad or mediocre at best seasons. It's concerning when all we have to grasp onto is that he scored four goals in the Norwegian second tier as if that's some indicator of quality. I certainly won't be booing him, and I really hope he somehow turns into an actual footballer at the age of 24 when he's not looked like one at all in his past. I do. But, if literally the rest of his career so far is any indicator, we're going to see a lot of misplaced passes and games passing him by. Because the stats and performances until this point suggest, he's just not a footballer. Not at the professional level, anyway. Most players we sign are a coin toss as to how they end up doing for us. I would never bet on or against them. But if I was a betting man? I'd put my money on this being a signing that is used in Motherwell-themed pub quizzes in years to come.
  5. I can say it's a mental deal based on the information we have about the player to this point. Are you new to the workings of an internet football forum? This is kinda how it works. Not just for us but for every team in every league all over the world. Team signs player in summer window Fans discuss it online, looking at said players history & stats Player plays in games, and fans discuss how they get on in those games Rinse and repeat I've never seen a football fan community where every signing is met by fans saying "I will reserve judgement on this player until such a time as he's played enough games for us to make an informed decision." Football fan forums are places for wild speculation, transfer gossip, heated debates about who's the shittest left-back at the club, and why a new signing is great/shite based on nothing but their past records. It seems fairly plausible that they bought him, then the manager thought "aw fuck, this guy is terrible" once he got a chance to see him in person. Which is why they ended his contract early and sent him packing. I've yet to find a Saints fan who is saying that the guy got a raw deal, or that they wish they'd kept him or had played him more. What is concerning me is that we've gone ahead and picked him up on a two-year deal despite seeing that he wasn't able to get into a shite St Johnstone team.
  6. Of course a players history is no guarantee of success or failure, but it's a very good indicator of their skill and ability levels, isn't it? Otherwise, why would any team bother signing a player based on what he's done in the past? As I've said above, numerous times, usually when we sign someone I can at least see where the potential is. Can you or anyone else on here tell me where the potential is with this player? That's the thing, this isn't just "the usual suspects" who are questioning this signing. And of course we need to deal with it, he's here, on a two-year fucking deal. But it doesn't mean we can't discuss how mental the deal is, especially on a football forum where that's what we do. If you don't like it, go do something else. Or discuss something else in one of the other threads. But if people like me want to discuss this particular transfer, we will.
  7. Well, no one we sign is a "sure bet." But, at the same time, as I mentioned in the post above, they've usually done something to suggest there's a reason why we're signing them. In Casey's case it was him being seen as solid and experienced. No one was proclaiming him the second coming of Brian Martin, but the general consensus was that he would help strengthen the defence and was a decent organiser, which we needed. With Bair, I see absolutely nothing. Not a single thing to warrant us wasting a two-year contract on him.
  8. Honestly? That he was "okay" but nothing special, from what I can see. I don't think many of their fans saw him as a loss because they seemingly got promoted that year and knew he wouldn't make the cut in the top tier. The Norwegian 2nd tier is likely his level, at a push. Or the semi-pro ranks in the US. As he's shown during the four years he's been playing football, he's not a Scottish Premiership-level player. Not by a long shot. And as I said before, I'm not one for questioning players before they play for us. I've never really done that because I usually have a look at what they bring and think, "Okay, we're never signing players who are the finished article, but this player has the potential to bring something to the table." We signed Obika and Wilkinson, and while I'm not over the moon or excited by those signings, I can at least see in their past why the manager thinks they can do a job for us if the stars align and it all works out. I see nothing here. He's 24 years old in a few weeks and has scored eight goals in 92 appearances. Apart from looking half-decent during a short stint in the Norwegian 2nd division, he's failed everywhere else, including in the same league we play in. I could even have convinced myself of the signing if it was a 6-month deal. Even a 1-year deal. I could then reason that he's being brought in as an extra body until someone else we really want is available in January or given a chance to prove himself for some weird reason, or whatever. But this is a two-year deal. It's just absolute madness, in my opinion.
  9. Christ, you really must be fun at parties. It was obviously a joke.
  10. We've seen far better managers convinced to sign players for less. Didn't Souness sign someone for Southampton or something who wasn't even a real footballer? In all seriousness, though, I honestly don't know what Kettlewell is thinking. He's clearly not signing him based on his past performances for any of the teams he's ever played for. That he sees a player who made his professional debut four years and 92 games ago as a "project" is quite worrying, I think. If he was 19 and had played a handful of games, I'd probably be less inclined to criticise the move. As I said, I'd be happy to be proven wrong, especially since he gave the guy a two-year deal. I saw a St Johnstone fan on another forum saying he figures that the thinking is Kettlewell wants a year to work with him and then a year where he'll be fully up to speed. I'm not sure that works with someone who's the same age right now as Allan Campbell was when he left us for Luton, but I guess we'll see. It came from Google Translate, because it was a joke.
  11. Bair er en av de verste spillerne vi noen gang har hatt. Han er dritt.
  12. Sounds like how the Glasgow two describe virtually every Champions League game they ever play.
  13. Nah, wait a minute. I understand that there are some on here who are looking to back a player we've signed, and that's commendable, but let's not resort to just making shit up. Dan Casey signed for us from America and "had done fuck all of note"? He had played nearly 100 games in the Irish league by the age of 23. In his second season, he was part of a team that finished 3rd in the league. He also represented Ireland at youth level. I clearly remember when he was touted as a potential signing here, the overwhelming opinion was that he looked solid and had a lot of potential. While you're right, there is no point in getting overly excited or overly depressed, it's what we do. If every single signing was met with measured indifference until they had played 10 games, there'd be zero point in this forum. We come here to speculate, discuss, dissect, and deliberate. Especially in the summer when there's been next to no football. But none of that changes the fact that us signing Theo Bair is a really strange piece of business. Look, I'm not one for criticising the players or manager. Sometimes to the extent that I get hit with the classic "happy clapper" tag, but this one particular signing makes absolutely zero sense to me. This isn't a young guy who's shown potential but not had the chance to show it. He's someone who's actively accomplished nothing since he "burst onto the scene" and rattled in three goals in three years at Vancouver. Fans of every team he's ever played for will tell you that he's not a professional footballer at the level we're playing at. It's that simple. Of course, I hope he somehow turns it around and shows that the past four years of his entire career have been one big underachievement and that he's able to do something he's never shown a hint of yet. Not least because we've handed him a two-year deal, which is even crazier. Unless he breaks the habit of a lifetime, we're going to be stuck with someone who simply isn't good enough. Nah, he'll just be astounded that he hasn't had to drop down to the semi-pro game in the US or Canada. That call from his agent telling him that after St Johnstone, one of the worst teams in the division, finally terminated his deal has been followed by Motherwell wanting to give him a two-year contract, is probably the best call he's ever received. And fair play to him. I hope his agent gets paid well because he's done some job.
  14. Just for even more perspective, Stevie May scored 10 the season before the one you mentioned, and has hit double figures five times in his career at varying levels and for different clubs. The most Bair has managed was four in one season, where he played 17 games in the Norwegian second tier. He's played in 92 games during his career and has scored eight goals.
  15. If I was someone like Mark Ferrie I'd be looking at this most recent signing and wondering what kind of confidence the club has in my abilities if they're signing the likes of Theo Bair. Bair will be basically another body in the way of Ferrie getting game time I'd wager. Which is pretty disappointing.
  16. Let's be honest, "breaking through" into an MLS side basically consisted of him being picked up on an MLS homegrown pre-contract by Vancouver, which doesn't really mean all that much. He was one of five kids signed to such a contract. It's basically the MLS equivalent of us signing one of our youth players to a professional contract. We're not talking about Alistair Johnston here. I don't see anywhere that says how much he cost St Johnstone, but even if they paid £100,000 for him, that probably says more about St Johnstone than anything else. Unless, of course, they were under the impression that he was "a project, only in his early 20's, adds options," and so on? And you're right. He mostly played from the bench. But considering the position St Johnstone was in last season and the fact he was never really deemed good enough to get a start for them, that tells its own story. They terminated his contract for a reason. And it wasn't because he is a young project with lots of potential.
  17. is Bair a punt though? I always thought a punt was someone who has maybe had a season or two where they've not looked great, or have been coming off an injury like Souaré is. As I said above, there's literally nothing to suggest Bair is a professional-level footballer. I assumed once St Johnstone got rid after his one goal in nearly 40 games that he'd surface in the Canadian or US semi-pro leagues. That we've not only given him a chance but handed him a two-year contract is absolutely astounding.
  18. I wasn't expecting us to sign a 29-goal striker either, but I was expecting us to do better than three strikers with a collective haul last season of 5 goals. And before anyone says, I'm perfectly aware that we can't expect to sign a striker who's hot off the heels of a double digit scoring season. I get that. But the three guys we've signed look decidedly suspect if I'm being honest. Let's try to frame this positively... Obika is 32, so he's not improving. He's on the downslide of his career if anything. That's just how it goes at that age. He managed to hit eight and five league goals in his two seasons in Scotland with St Mirren, so I guess there might be some cause for optimism, even if that was three years ago now. Wilkinson is 28 now, so should technically be hitting his prime. He looks the most capable of the guys we've signed, which is something of a positive, even if, in previous seasons, he'd likely be seen as a backup for better players at the club, in my opinion. Bair is a signing that, no matter how positive I try to be and how many different angles I try to look at the signing from, I just don't get it. I don't see the upside. He's 23, which is relatively young, I guess, but he made his pro debut four years ago, and to date, his best season return is four goals in the Norwegian second tier if I'm reading his stats correctly. He managed three goals in three seasons in MLS, four goals in one season in Norway, and one goal in 37 games in Scottish football. I simply can't see anything there that would warrant a trial, let alone handing him a two-year contract. Fans were quick to jump on Alexander for giving Josh Morris a two year deal, but at least that was a player who had notched up double digit appearances every season in almost ten years of football, with most of it coming at English League One level. He was a journeyman, sure, but he at least had been picked regularly by managers at that level over ten years. I don't understand why we were all quick to blast that signing as an absolute joke, yet this Theo Bair lad is getting the "well, he's big" and "he might be better than Mandron" chat. Is this because Kettlewell is a smoother operator than Alexander was? Are we buying into his signings more, despite their apparent lack of quality, because we want to like him more?
  19. I like to consider myself someone who's as far from a reactionist as you'll find on this board, but honestly, these signings this summer are really starting to concern me. I think we're seeing a whole lot of "well, if Kettlewell likes the look of them, we need to have faith" from fans, which is fine, but last season at this point in time, fans were losing their shit to the extent that our manager was replaced. I know the European games were the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, but I clearly remember everyone losing the plot over our summer business, which consisted of: Blair Spittal on a two-year deal Paul McGinn on a one-year deal Josh Morris on a two-year deal Kevin Van Veen signing a new contract Compared to this summer, that business looks absolutely amazing. I'm 100% behind Kettlewell, as he's the man in the hotseat, but I still remember my thoughts before he got the job. He didn't do great at Ross County when he got handed the reigns on his own, with a win percentage of less than 30%. He did really well with us for the four months he was in charge last season, but this is his first transfer window. His first chance to really put his stamp on the team, and to be blunt, I'm not impressed.
  20. Probably based on them finishing top six last season, and us losing our best young player and best striker we've had in years, while replacing them with underwhelming names. Not that this means St Mirren will win, but let's be honest, we're not looking great compared to how we finished last season.
  21. What makes you think some random website would have the inside information on player wages in Scotland?
  22. Let's be honest, a game against St Mirren is just going to be like our upcoming games against teams like them in the league. We could go out and win 3-0 while looking amazing or could get cuffed 3-0 and look terrible. Or anywhere in between. It's a coin-toss really, and it's what keeps things interesting.
  23. Based on what? Do we know definitively what the yearly wage bill is of Kilmarnock, Ross County, St Mirren, and Livingston? Having a quick look at their transfer business, I can say that those clubs are signing players I've at least heard of and have Scottish football experience of premiership level. Kilmarnock have picked up Kyle Magennis, Matty Kennedy, and Marley Watkins while paying a fee to sign Lewis Mayo from Rangers. Ross County has signed Eamonn Brophy and Scott Allardice and has paid actual money for around five players. St Mirren signed mostly dross, from what I can see, but paid a fee for one of said dross players. And Livi has signed Mikey Devlin from Hibs, who I've at least heard of. The key factor in all of this is those clubs have someone, or a group of people, with actual money in reserve. We're fan owned. We no longer have that luxury. And money will be wasted by Kettlewell also. It's the nature of the game at our level. Basically, throw enough shite against the wall and see what sticks. Take a gamble on five players and hope two or even three pay off. So we have Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, and Dundee United as the largest top six clubs, most likely. Do we then come after those clubs as the next biggest? Depends on the criteria, I think. If it's based on money available, then no chance. As highlighted above, Ross County has paid actual money for five players this summer and has an owner worth somewhere in the region of £300 million. Even Dundee, although mismanaged of late, has been pulling in crowds similar to ours while they were in the Championship. They're also a city club. I certainly wouldn't rank us as a top six or seven club in Scotland based on finances, or fanbase. See, the fans always say that, but do they really want that? I've mentioned a few times when we've all been discussing striking options that young Mark Ferrie has looked good in his runouts this season. But most fans don't want to look at him as an option. We're all waiting patiently for the club to announce another lower-level English league signing with single-digit goal return most seasons in their career. Every mediocre signing we bring in on a six or twelve month deal is just another useless body who will see game time before someone like Ferrie does.
  24. Damn. That's one thing off the list that you can moan about this week then.
  25. Nope. Any dodgy links need an official link to source from. And there's no official link.
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