St Johnstone midfielder Chris Millar is confident that his hamstring nightmare is over.
Last season was a stop-start one for the influential Perth player, with Saints fans losing count of the number of times the previous year’s player of the year had to come off early during games.
A combination of a first proper rest in five summers and rigorous testing of the problem hamstring have given the former Morton man faith that his body will hold-up much better in the coming campaign.
“Last year I had trouble with the hamstring but I was through at a centre in Edinburgh hooked up to a machine for resistance tests and the results were very positive,” Millar revealed.
“I’m up 10% on last year.
“The work I’ve done on it over the summer combined with rest has worked.
“It’s very reassuring and the hamstring feels very solid.
“Now we are all looking forward to the start of the League Cup campaign in a couple of weeks.”
He added: “I’m itching to get going.
“We’ve had two hard days’ training and we’re off to Ireland next week.
“We have had a longer break and that could be good for us. I certainly feel re-charged.”
Millar admitted though that seeing other Scottish clubs representing Scotland in Europe hasn’t been easy.
“We never took Europe for granted,” he said.
“After four years in the Europa League there’s been a bit of envy seeing Hearts and Aberdeen preparing for games this week.
“It would have been great for us and the fans to be involved again on the back of finishing fourth last season.
“We’d have been back in earlier but it is a short career and you want to play at that level.”
Millar knows that he’s got a fight on his hands just to start a game for Saints this season.
“There’s a lot of competition in the midfield area with guys like Paul Paton, Michael Coulson and Blair Alston coming in,” he said.
“But we need a strong and competitive squad because the league will be even tougher.
“The gaffer has added some really good players and there will be serious competition for starting places.
“Just because I’ve been here for a long time and been a regular starter I’m in the same boat as everyone else. It’s about doing well in pre-season and impressing the gaffer.”
