In his other life as a media student, St Johnstone’s Chris Millar has been known to jot down some player ratings for a national newspaper, Sunday’s League Cup final being the most recent example.
The Perth midfielder admitted that if he’d been marking himself out of 10 for his performance against Partick Thistle last weekend his score would have been at the lower end of the scale.
And if he needed any help in his self-assessment, there was a family member on hand to provide it.
“I’d have said ‘improved as the game went on’,” Millar joked.
“But I’d have been happy with a three or a four out of 10, taken it on the chin and moved on!
“My brother Ian said to me the other day, ‘I watched you on the highlights and you had a beast, didn’t you’. And that’s my own brother!
“Coming from a family of five boys they always have their digs now and again.
“It’s not been too bad this year, so I must have had a decent season.
“I said to him ‘you’ve only watched the highlights’ but he said ‘that was enough!’
“A footballer knows himself when he’s had a bad game to be fair. I put my hands up when I spoke to the gaffer when I was coming off.”
Millar can be forgiven one poor performance as he’s arguably been Saints’ player of the season.
The former Morton man is confident that both he, and the team, will be back to their pre-Firhill form when St Mirren visit McDiarmid Park this afternoon.
Millar pointed out: “It was a poor performance from most of us but sometimes you get days like that. You just have to put it down as one of those days and get over it quickly.
“Looking at the season overall, this has been the most consistent I’ve been.
“The performance came out of the blue for me and a few others.
“We prepared the same as usual but, for whatever reason, we had a bad game. We never got ourselves into the match. They dealt with the conditions better, and fair play to them.
“We’ll certainly not be beating ourselves up about it.
“Over the years whenever we’ve produced a bad performance we manage to put it behind us and get a reaction in the next game.
“Our season started back in June, I think, and there haven’t been too many afternoons like last Saturday.
“Ours isn’t a dressing room for excuses.”
As a resident of Greenock, Millar knows all about the Morton and St Mirren rivalry.
But he’s not had any special requests yet to help keep the Buddies in the Premiership relegation place.
“There’s not been too much chat this week actually,” he reported.
“Sometimes my pals who are Morton fans will have a word. I know they’d like to come up a division and would look forward to derbies if St Mirren went down, but it’s been quite quiet this week so far.”
Millar believes that the fact that Motherwell have been dragged into the basement battle puts Saints’ achievement of keeping themselves safe for another year into context.
He observed: “All the teams at the bottom are picking up points. It’s a tough one to call.
“If it was to be Motherwell, what a turn around that would be for their club.
“They’re more used to being nearer the top, like us.
“It shows you can’t take anything for granted and that another top six finish would be a great achievement for us again.”
Saints boss Tommy Wright is still without Simon Lappin, but has an otherwise fully fit squad to choose from.