Celtic have won each of their opening six league games as they hunt down a sixth consecutive title, and hope to avoid a similarly dramatic finish this time around.
Second-placed Celtic hosted first-placed Hearts in the final match of last season, the visitors only needing a point to win a first league title in 66 years. Hearts even took the lead, before Martin O'Neill's side turned the match around with a 3-1 win, scoring twice in the final three minutes.
O'Neill is into his third spell as manager at Celtic Park. Following five successful years, the Northern Irishman returned last season 20 years later as caretaker manager in October and then again in January following Wilfried Nancy's ill-fated stint in charge, and he has since announced he would stay for the duration of this season.
This season preview will cover the title race, the unique split in the league towards the end of the campaign and how the league's clubs will fare in Europe this season, as well as the Scottish Premiership odds for the new campaign.
Scottish Premiership title odds 2026/27
Celtic started the new campaign as odds-on favourites at mostÃÂ football betting sitesÃÂ for a sixth successive Scottish Premiership title and a record-extending 57th league triumph, with O'Neill's side starting off as 4/5 favourites with bet365 and quickly shortening to 1/3 after winning the first three.
Rangers are their closest challengers in the market at 11/4 as they seek their first league title since 2021. The Ibrox side made some shrewd signings and found a new manager in the off season, which may take a bit of time to click, while Celtic opted to stick with their manager and have kept the core of their squad. Derek McInnes has them second, which is the minimum expectation.
As alluded to earlier, Hearts missed out on a first league title since 1960 by the barest of margins on the final day of last season, but with their manager and top scorer both having moved to Rangers since their heartbreaking end to the season, they were always less fancied to mount another title charge. A modest start has pushed them out from 12/1 to 25/1.
- Celtic - 1/3 with BOYLE Sports
- Rangers - 11/4 with Betway
- Hearts - 25/1 with bet365
- Aberdeen - 250/1 with BOYLE Sports
- Hibernian - 500/1 with Ladbrokes
*Odds correct at time of writing but are subject to change.
Celtic's title defence and the Old Firm challenge
Celtic, as they have been so often over the last couple of decades, are the dominant force in Scottish football.
The club have won 14 of the last 15 league titles, including each of the last five, with the most dramatic of those victories last season also sealing a record-breaking 56th in their history, taking them above Rangers in the overall tally for the first time in just shy of 100 years.
Celtic under Martin O'Neill
O'Neill confirmed he would carry on as Celtic boss this season following his success in the second half of last season, which ultimately delivered a fourth league title to the club, 22 years after his most recent one.
The Northern Irishman took over for a third spell at Celtic Park with the side six points behind league leaders Hearts, overtaking the Jam Tarts in the very final minutes of the Scottish Premiership season with a come-from-behind 3-1 win against their title rivals on the last day at Celtic Park.
The defending champions opted for continuity in the transfer market, making only two signings, the most notable being Kasper Høgh who gained notoriety scoring plenty of goals for Bodø/Glimt in their run to the last 16 of the Champions League.
It has worked. Celtic have won six in a row, including a 5-1 win at Kilmarnock and a 3-0 defeat of Aberdeen, and their price has more than halved since the opening weekend.
â½ Back Celtic to retain the Scottish Premiership title at 1/3 with BOYLE Sports â½
Rangers under Derek McInnes
Rangers scored more goals than anyone in the division last season, 76, even more than champions Celtic, but drew 12 games and finished only third. The verdict? Too many shared points, not a lack of firepower.
Even so, McInnes opted to bring in his top scorer from last season at Hearts, Lawrence Shankland, and made him club captain following the departure of James Tavernier. Shankland came within a goal of winning last season's Golden Boot despite missing a large chunk of the campaign through injury.
Six other new faces came through the door at Ibrox, with goalkeeper Ivor Pandur, right back Ross McCrorie and central midfielder Dan Neil all crossing the border from England to join the Premiership title challengers.
Pandur and Neil both came from Premier League sides, the former playing every minute bar one match of Hull's shock promotion-winning campaign via the Championship play-offs, which earned him a spot in Croatia's World Cup squad, while the latter joins from Sunderland.
Second place is where Rangers sit, but a home defeat to Hibernian in August showed the transition is not complete.
â½ Bet on Rangers to end Celtic's run of titles at 11/4 with Betway â½
Hearts and the rest
Hearts finished just two points behind Celtic last season but lost key players, and perhaps most notably their manager, over the summer. They have already seen their first taste of Champions League football in 20 years come to an abrupt end.
The Edinburgh side were beaten 6-0 on aggregate by Austrian side Sturm Graz in the second round of their qualifying campaign, which was then swiftly followed by another thumping at the hands of Portuguese giants Benfica, 7-2 on aggregate, in the Europa League qualifiers. Thankfully for the Jam Tarts, they did salvage a Conference League spot by squeezing past Rapid Vienna on penalties.
Motherwell had the best defensive record in the division with 18 clean sheets, more than any other side, and impressed with their fourth-place finish.
Kilmarnock are a side who will back themselves to upset the odds after finishing last season so well. Killie were very much in a relegation dogfight before Neil McCann took over as manager in January, and worked wonders, winning six of their last eight home games to comfortably survive.
They appeared to have done some shrewd business over the summer, though a heavy home defeat to Celtic and a run without a win have made for a difficult start.
â½ Back Hearts to go one better and win the Scottish Premiership at 25/1 with bet365 â½
How the top six/bottom six split works
The format of the Scottish Premiership is very different to how most of the big leagues across Europe work, due to only having 12 teams in it.
The first 33 matches of the campaign are all very straightforward, each team playing every other side three times, alternating whether it's at home or away.
After 33 matches, the league splits into two, the top six and the bottom six. Each team then plays the other five teams in their section of the split on one further occasion.
What's notable about the split is that the top six teams and the bottom six teams in the table are locked in place no matter the number of points each team finishes on, making it possible for the seventh-placed team to finish on more points than the team finishing sixth.
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Games 1-33 | All 12 teams play each other three times (33 games) |
| The split | League divides into top six and bottom six by position |
| Games 34-38 | Each team plays the other five in their group once more |
| Bottom six ceiling | Can't finish higher than 7th, whatever their form |
Scottish Premiership top scorer odds
Motherwell striker Tawanda Maswanhise was the recipient of the Golden Boot last season after firing 17 goals, just one more than both Celtic playmaker Benjamin Nygren and the new Rangers captain and Scotland international Shankland, the latter bagging 16 in just 28 matches.
His new Gers teammate Youssef Chermiti finished just one goal behind him last year, with Hearts star Claudio Braga just a further goal behind, all of whom will be in the hunt for that Golden Boot once again.
Celtic's new number nine, Kasper Høgh, still heads the market for this season's competition. The Norwegian, who arrived from last season's Champions League giant killers Bodø/Glimt, made an immediate impression with three goals in his first two league games in Scotland, though he has since been caught at the top of the scoring charts and his price has eased from 11/10 to 7/4.
Behind him, Camilo Duran has been backed into 7/2 while Nygren has come in to 8/1. Shankland is the one the market has abandoned, drifting all the way from 13/2 to 22/1 despite starting the campaign as Rangers captain.
- Kasper Høgh (Celtic) - 7/4 with Betway
- Camilo Duran (Celtic) - 7/2 with BOYLE Sports
- Lawrence Shankland (Rangers) - 8/1 with Betway
- Benjamin Nygren (Celtic) - 22/1 with Sky Bet
- Tawanda Maswanhise (Motherwell) - 22/1 with Sky Bet
- Kevin Nisbet (Aberdeen) - 25/1 with William Hill
Scotland's European contingent this season
Celtic will play in the Europa League this season, having spectacularly collapsed in their Champions League qualifier against Austrian champions LASK Linz, losing 5-4 on aggregate from 4-0 up.
The Bhoys will host Ferencváros, Celta Vigo, Beà Âiktaà  and Marseille, and will travel to Benfica, Torreense, who stunned Sporting CP to win the Portuguese Cup last season as a second-tier side, Omonoia Nicosia and Union Saint-Gilloise. It's a tricky set of fixtures, but Celtic will be pleased to have most of the bigger names at home.
Rangers, on the other hand, will not play in Europe after losing on penalties to Czech outfit Jablonec, but Hearts were able to salvage a Conference League spot after making it third time lucky in qualifying ties. The pick of their six league phase games will see them take on Mo Salah's Trabzonspor in Turkey.
Neither Motherwell nor Hibernian were able to join them. Motherwell were resoundingly beaten by last season's Europa League finalists Freiburg over two legs, while Hibs narrowly missed out to Belgian side Gent.
My Scottish Premiership tips
This season had a more open feel than any in recent memory, with last season's three-horse title race going down to the last week and attracting plenty of external eyes to the league. Celtic's start has done its best to close that down again.
Old Firm season series
The Old Firm derby, among the biggest sporting rivalries in Europe and perhaps even the world, is always the first thing to look out for when the new fixture list drops. The first league meeting between the two dominant forces of Scottish football takes place on 20th September this season.
The matches are typically very tough ones to predict, with form, as cliché as it is, going out of the window.
Celtic didn't manage to win an Old Firm clash in the first stage of last season, despite going on to win the title, with two of the matches ending in stalemates.
As boring as it may seem, a win for each team and a draw seems the most sensible shout for predicting the first three league Old Firm meetings this season.
Best of the rest
With Celtic and Rangers often running away with the top two spots in the division, the "Best of the Rest" market is a frequently visited one, where punters bet on which of the remaining 10 teams in the Premiership will finish highest in the table.
This season it still looks difficult to look past Hearts, even though they've lost their manager and top scorer since last season, the side from the capital having come to within a matter of minutes of winning a first league title in 66 years.
The Jam Tarts are odds-on favourites at 4/9 with William Hill to finish highest in the betting without Celtic or Rangers, though their city rivals Hibernian will have something to say about that.
â½ Bet on Hearts to finish third above all non-Old Firm teams at 4/9 with William Hill â½
Top six finish
Despite the season lasting 38 matches, a number of teams in the division will be most concerned by where they sit after 33 matches, due to the unique split that occurs at this stage of the season, cutting the league in half between the top six and bottom six.
There are three teams that will feel almost guaranteed to achieve a top six finish this season, which leaves the nine teams fighting for the final three spots, and all of them will see themselves as genuine contenders for it.
Hibernian, Aberdeen and Motherwell are all priced odds-on to take those three spots, and Motherwell have been backed hardest of the three, coming in from 10/11 to 4/7.
Last season's Golden Boot winner Tawanda Maswanhise opened his account for the new season in a thrilling 3-3 draw with St Mirren, and he could be the key again for The Well.
â½ Tip Motherwell for a top six finish in the Scottish Premiership at 4/7 with Betway â½
Key dates for the 2026/27 Scottish Premiership season
The standout matches of the campaign no doubt come in the Old Firm derby, the first league meeting of which takes place at Celtic Park on 20th September, before the rivalry moves to Ibrox on 2nd January, with the final pre-split meeting scheduled for 27th February back at Parkhead.
The Edinburgh derbies could also be ones to watch in terms of the race for the 'best of the rest' markets. The remaining two are pencilled in for 27th December and 10th April, with a fourth to follow assuming both land in the same section of the split.
FAQs about the Scottish Premiership 2026/27 season
1. Who are the favourites to win the Scottish Premiership this season?
Celtic are the odds-on favourites at 1/3 to win a sixth consecutive league title, though they are expected to face competition from Rangers at 11/4. Hearts, who came within minutes of winning the league last season, are priced a little further afield at 25/1 after a slower start.
2. How does the top six/bottom six split work?
33 games into the season, the league splits into the top six and the bottom six, with each team playing every team in their half of the table on one more occasion.
After the split, the top six can finish no lower than sixth and the bottom six no higher than seventh, no matter what tally of points each team has.
3. Where can UK fans watch Scottish Premiership matches?
Live Scottish football on TV includes up to 82 live matches from the Scottish Premiership on Sky Sports and Premier Sports.
ð Read more football during the 2026/27 season
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