Gothenburg Great Bryan Gunn has high hopes for teenage former Dons stopper Archie Mair at Norwich City.
Gunn is a club legend at Carrow Road and has watched Mair’s progress with interest, since he made the same switch from Aberdeen to Norfolk last year.
Mair has featured for the under-23s regularly this season while also making the bench for the first-team on several occasions.
The 19-year-old is also capped at age-group level for Scotland and will spend the 2020-21 season on loan at Kings Lynn, who have just been promoted to the Vanarama National League.
Gunn made the same move in 1986, having served as Jim Leighton’s understudy before racking up more than 450 appearances for the Canaries over 12 years.
He has heard positive things about the youngster from Turriff, who was on the bench for Norwich in their 5-0 defeat to Man City on the final day of the Premier League season.
Gunn said: “He seems to have settled in well. I know he’s played a lot of under-23s games and the next stage for him is going on loan.
“He’s going to play in the National League, which will be a good test for him. I saw he was on the bench last weekend. I said to him when he signed that I hoped he’d have as good a career as the last goalkeeper who came down from Aberdeen.
“He’s got a long way to go yet but all the reports I’m getting are good.”
Mair’s farming background in the north-east may also have helped him settle in too, something Gunn – whose family hail from Invergordon – found when he made the move south.
He added: “It’s one thing I found – although there’s a city there, once you go 10 or 15 miles outside it’s beautiful countryside and farmland. I’m sure he feels at home there.”
Norwich finished bottom of the Premier League this season, 14 points from safety, with big clubs now circling to take away some of their key players like Max Aarons, Emi Buendia and Ben Godfrey.
However, Gunn believes ex-Don Kenny McLean could play a pivotal part in Daniel Farke’s restoration job.
He said: “I think Kenny could be an important kingpin in the whole thing next season, depending on who stays and who goes. The fans love him as well so when fans get back in the stadium and get behind their team, hopefully they’ll be firing on all cylinders.
“It’s probably an experience they’ll come through now and it’ll be interesting to see how they reshape their squad. Whether they sell the youngsters and try and keep the rest – they’ll have an interesting next few weeks I imagine. They’ll be batting back some of the big guns for the ones they’ve got.”
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