The latest in a long line of cut-short matches for Chris Millar has prompted St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright to send his influential midfielder for a scan.
The sight of Millar trudging off the pitch early became an all too familiar one last season.
And, after it happened again at Fir Park on Saturday, Wright wants to “get to the very bottom of it”.
“Chris is going for a scan to try and find out what’s going on,” the Perth boss reported.
“It’s not the same problem as last season but it’s in the same area of his groin.
“He’s been playing well, he’s an influential player so we need to try to get to the very bottom of it.
“Something’s amiss and we need to rectify it.
“He’s just feeling something there, it’s maybe just fatigue and he’s being protective of it because of the previous problems.
“So we will send him for the scan, let the experts look at it and hopefully figure out what’s causing it.”
Tam Scobbie is also going for a scan but his is “just a precaution,” Wright noted.
“We don’t think it’s going to be anything serious,” he said.
“Keith Watson will start training again by the end of the month and Dave Mackay is still three or four weeks away.
“Michael Coulson also has a bleed in his thigh so he’s going to be out for a couple of weeks as well.
“So we have a few out injured at the moment but we built a strong squad, especially in midfield, so we can cope with this sort of thing.
“We had six or seven players missing against Motherwell but were able to manage it.
Unbeaten Saints have settled into the new season extremely well and Wright believes their form at the end of the last campaign has played a part in that.
“We are getting the benefits of having finished the season on a high last time,” Wright said.
“The lads have had a good recovery over the summer and with the players we’ve added I think we’ve brought real quality to the squad.
“The League Cup campaign has been good for us, we won games early on and have built a bit of momentum from that.
“So we’ve had a good start – a very good week last week – but that’s all it is.
“I took a lot of satisfaction from what we did last week, to get a good point against Aberdeen then knock a club the size of Hearts out of the cup.
“And to then go to Motherwell after that and come back from a goal down showed the character we have here.”
