IT may appear a bold claim from a player whose club’s top scorers last season got the grand total of four apiece, but Hamilton’s Mickel Miller has insisted he plans on netting at least 13 goals this campaign.

Miller earned his fifth and sixth of the season in the win over St Mirren on Saturday – he also scored a hat-trick against Berwick Rangers in the Betfred Cup and netted versus Hearts in the Ladbrokes Premiership – overtaking team-mate Rakish Bingham and former colleague David Templeton’s total for the whole of last season.

“I’m going to keep it slow and steady, still try and hit the teens,” said Miller when asked if he had a goal target for the campaign. “Then if I get there, push on from there.”

The 22-year-old Londoner, signed from English non-league side Carshalton Athletic in January, played a crucial part in Hamilton’s opening goal, sliding in Steven Boyd whose shot was saved but pounced upon by Fredrik Brustad.

Miller then took the onus upon himself, blasting home a penalty and striking from distance in the second half with a shot that nestled in the net after hitting both posts.

Hamilton manager Martin Canning was effusive in his praise, dubbing Miller’s performance “brilliant” and he “completely deserved” his man of the match award.

“I’m delighted,” said the Accies attacker. “We needed that, the last few results haven’t been as good as we wanted but [on Saturday] hopefully we turned that around.

“I was happy with the through ball [that led to the opening goal], it’s not normally my game threading through balls, but I’m delighted to add it into my game.”

St Mirren, however, followed up an impressive 0-0 draw in new manager Oran Kearney’s first match in charge against Celtic with a performance reminiscent of those in Alan Stubbs’ ill-fated stint.

“It’s easy to get yourselves up for drawing with Celtic and having a good performance with the bounce of a new manager,” said St Mirren goalkeeper Craig Samson.

“But it’s about being able to come to places like this and having a set of balls to go and win the game. We didn’t do that. It was a good performance [versus Celtic] and we got what we deserved out of the game.

“This week was the same – we got what we deserved. Nothing.”