With the January transfer window in full swing, the man behind many of Dumbarton’s summer signings, chief scout Stuart Millar, has revealed why he decided to join the Sons – and gave up the chance to scout the likes of Sergio Aguero and Wayne Rooney.

Millar’s vast experience in football spans 35 years and took in playing spells at Dumbarton and Clyde.

He returned to Clyde as manager in 2010, a spell which split his seven years at Ross County as chief scout where he played a key role in the club’s rise from the third tier to Scottish football’s top table.

After Derek Adams was sacked by Ross County in 2014, Millar took a role as talent spotter at English Premier League side West Brom – he was then offered a full-time role with the Baggies to scout the likes of Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool every week.

However Millar turned down that, along with a number of other offers, to join Stevie Aitken at Dumbarton after forging a strong relationship with the Sons gaffer while Millar was assistant to Neil Watt at Stranraer and Aitken was a player.

The desire to work closely with Aitken was behind the move, as well as his desire to keep his job away from football, despite what Millar admits was a tempting offer from down south.

He said: “When Stephen asked me if I wanted to come to Dumbarton in the summer, I had to think long and hard about it to be honest because I was at West Brom at the time.

“That was obviously a big role to give up, I was watching Premiership games in Scotland and in England.

“I did match reports for Tony Pulis on the likes of Sunderland and Liverpool.

“But my main role was scouting for talent in Scotland, the likes of Stuart Armstrong, Gary Mackay-Steven and Virgil Van Dijk were players we were looking at.

“So it was a big decision to make. I was offered a full-time role by West Brom to cover the North of England, so that would have been covering the likes on Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Everton.

“But I have a full-time role in property management away from football, there was never any chance of me giving that up, I wouldn’t put my family at risk like that.

“I wanted to get back to dealing with a manager directly, at West Brom I was only one of a dozen or so scouts in Europe and I didn’t have any direct dealings with Tony Pulis.

“I knew Stephen would listen to me. I knew his drive, enthusiasm and dedication to the role, I had advised him to get his coaching badges all those years ago. My relationship with Stephen was the main reason for me moving to Dumbarton.

“I wanted to get back to what I had at Ross County with Derek Adams.

“I was there for seven years and I only answered to Derek, we had great success during that time.”

Millar also revealed that an approach from a Scottish Premiership club two months ago was knocked back as he opted to remain loyal to Dumbarton and continue his work with Aitken.

He said: “There was number of other offers available to me in the summer. But Dumbarton ticked all the boxes, it wasn’t about finance, it was just about enjoyment.

“Without being flippant I could’ve went to any number of clubs in Scotland, a couple of months ago there was an approach for me from a Scottish Premiership club and I remained loyal to Dumbarton.”

Millar’s primary role week to week at Sons is as an opposition scout, but he is a key figure in the club’s transfer dealings.

In the summer he provided Aitken with a dossier of players which could he felt were a good fit for Sons and has done so again for the January window.

That information will be invaluable to Aitken who is set to bolster his squad after already seeing Willie Gibson and Scott Brown depart the club this month and Sons still wait anxiously on whether Steven Saunders and Darren Barr will extend their stays at the Rock.

Jamie Lindsay has now extended his loan deal with Sons until the end of the season, the midfielder was one of many recommendations made to Aitken by Millar in the summer.

He said: “The type of work I do is very much based on statistics and detail of the opposition.

“I recommend players to Stephen, ultimately he decides whether he is interested in going for those players.

“In the summer we knew we only had a handful of players left so I recommended maybe 30 or 35 players to Stephen who I thought would be suitable for Dumbarton.

“Darren Barr and Mark Brown were at Ross County when I was there.

“I am friendly with Chris McCart (head of youth at Celtic) so it was a case of phoning him and seeing who was available, he suggested Calum Waters who I had seen a few times.

“I asked about Jamie Lindsay, that was one we had to wait on because he was with the first team squad doing pre-season and there was number of English League One clubs interested.

“Stephen took my word on Jamie Lindsay which was very good of him. Jamie is an outstanding young player, I seen him play a number of times for Celtic under-20s.

“I’m friendly with Jon Routledge’s agent, I didn’t think we could afford him but as it turned out no full-time team came in for Jon.

“I’ve provided the manager with a list of players who are out of contract in January and could be available and we’re talking to bigger clubs about taking players on loan.”

Although he admits scouting can never be an exact science, Millar insists the same due diligence is necessary when scouting players regardless if they are making the move to the English Premier League or the Scottish Championship.

He added: “At West Brom I watched Virgil Van Dijk 24 times in a season. I knew he was good enough after the first game.

“But you watch them in all circumstances, home and away, you speak to people and check out his character.

“When you have been in the game 35 years and are honest with people, people will point you in the right direction. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, the player isn’t a good fit for the club, that happens.

“But due diligence is done on every player that’s very important regardless of what club or level you are working at.”