David

Every manager who has signed him has talked about his potential. Not what he's done in the game. To this point, he's done nothing to prove he's a professional-level player. His record in MLS is rubbish, and his record at St Johnstone is rubbish. I also said that this is his last-chance saloon. You can only get by on athletic potential for so long, and at age 24 this month, he needs to start performing. Let's hope today is the start of that. However, the season has started. I said we discuss players when we sign them based on their past records before they play for us. For me, he's now one game and one goal deep and has done well today. Long may that continue.

My extreme assessment is based entirely on his extreme record. No one could look at what he's done in the game until now and think "yup, there's a player in there." I 100% hope he goes on to be a success. No one, unless they're just nasty types, ever wants to see someone fail. I can guarantee you, if this goal is the only one he ever scores, and he gets to the end of his two year stint and gets released, I certainly won't be sitting here saying "Ha! Told you so!" I don't want any of our players to fail.

Regardless of if he goes on to score 45 goals this season, I'll stand by my assessment of his record when we signed him. As I said, that's what we judge players on before the season begins. We always have and always will. I don't understand why there's this weird reaction to it happening with this player, when we've all done it in the past. This notion that we shouldn't take into account their previous career stats whatsoever is absolutely mental.

Just like him going a few games and not scoring wouldn't mean he's a write-off for us, scoring in one game doesn't mean he's going to be a success. Let's hope he can get a few more goals in the next few weeks.

It's still very early, but let's hope he can completely turn his career to this point on its head.

Well taken goal! Let's hope this start gives the lad confidence and he can kick on.

Pack it in. Final warning.

I'd settle for just the one goal. Something to get him started off on the right foot and hopefully turning his career around.

Give it a rest.

Looking at our current squad and the players we've lost this summer, I'm thinking we'll finish around 7th or 8th. I think Dundee, St Johnstone, and Ross County will be worse than us, but the rest I'm not sure about. I don't see us challenging for the top six unless we see one of our forwards have a standout year like Van Veen did last season.

Hopefully he can get his career on track. You have to think that another season with us similar to his previous seasons elsewhere will signal the end of his time in the professional ranks. Personally, I'm hoping we choose to use Ferrie and the new lad from Arsenal more.

I'm not sure we're in a position where we can call shots like that. There's every chance we ask for that stipulation and Arsenal reply along the lines of "Aye, very good. We've got about 10 teams willing to take him on loan. Bugger off."

I don't think anyone actively wants to see him fail. That would be mental.

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.

That's perfectly acceptable 😉

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Christ, you really must be fun at parties. It was obviously a joke.

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.

Bair er en av de verste spillerne vi noen gang har hatt. Han er dritt.

Sounds like how the Glasgow two describe virtually every Champions League game they ever play.