Scottish football's brief experiment with a three-way title race looks like it is over. Celtic and Rangers are widely expected to reclaim the two-horse contest after Hearts suffered a summer of significant losses heading into the new season.
Celtic won the Scottish Premiership last season, claiming a 14th title in 15 years, but the campaign was anything but comfortable. The club went through three managers across four separate spells in charge, lost eight league matches and accumulated just 82 points. Hearts pushed them to the final minutes, coming within three minutes of becoming the first side from outside Glasgow to lift the championship in 41 years.
That challenge has since been stripped away. Manager Derek McInnes has left Tynecastle for Ibrox, taking with him captain and top scorer Lawrence Shankland and star midfielder Cammy Devlin. All three now earn their wages at Rangers.
Hearts face season of transition
Hearts' new head coach is Wouter Vrancken, and the Belgian has inherited a substantially reconstructed squad put together by the club's Jamestown Analytics operation. The early evidence was not encouraging. Hearts were beaten 6-0 on aggregate by Sturm Graz in the Champions League qualifiers, a result that points to a difficult period of adjustment before Vrancken's ideas take hold.
Rangers, meanwhile, look considerably better placed than they did a year ago. The club ended last season in third place, beginning it under Russell Martin and finishing it under Danny Rohl. McInnes arrives as the sixth manager to take charge at Ibrox in as many years, but his record at St Johnstone, Bristol City, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock and Hearts suggests he is well suited to the task of galvanising a squad into something greater than the sum of its parts.
The squad he has inherited has been reinforced by the arrivals of Ivor Pandur, Ross McCrorie, Ben Godfrey, Dan Neil, Vanja Dragojevic and Olwethu Makhanya, with more additions expected. The departures of James Tavernier and Jack Butland have reduced experience, but both were figures associated with a run of near-misses. McInnes' stated task will be to instil the resilience that characterised the Rangers side he played in under Walter Smith in the 1990s.
Celtic still carry vulnerabilities
Celtic's title defence under Martin O'Neill comes with questions attached. The subsequent sale of Daizen Maeda to Ipswich has removed the player who, more than any other, dragged the team over the line last season. Gaps in firepower have been addressed by the signings of Camilo Duran and Kasper Hogh. The return from long-term injury of Cameron Carter-Vickers gives O'Neill the chance to work with arguably the best central defender in the division. A full pre-season for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could also prove significant.
However, Celtic remain light on guile and creativity and short of cover in several key positions. If those weaknesses are not addressed quickly, Rangers appear better positioned than at any point in recent seasons to capitalise.
Chasing the top two
Motherwell were in the title conversation until March last season under Jens Berthel Askou, who has since moved to Toulouse. Key midfielders Elliot Watt and Elijah Just have departed to Samsunspor and Swansea respectively. New manager Alfred Johansson has brought in Martin Moorman, Willy Vogt and Alex Lowry, on loan from Wycombe, among others. Their first-leg display against Faroese side HB in Europe suggested they can at least challenge for a top-six place again.
Aberdeen have finished outside the top six in three of the last five seasons, and manager Stephen Robinson has overseen a substantial summer rebuild. Eleven new players have arrived including Lewis Mayo, Brad Lyons, Lewis Smith and Tony Yogane, the Brentford forward who spent last season at Dundee.
Hibernian, who finished fifth last season, have added the experience of Jason Kerr as manager David Gray looks to improve on what was considered an underwhelming campaign given what Hearts were threatening to achieve.
Dundee United, hampered by inconsistency last term, have brought in Dylan Tait from Falkirk, Michael Forbes from West Ham and three A-League players under Jim Goodwin. St Johnstone, fresh from winning the Championship under Simo Valakari, begin top-flight life without 19-goal Josh McPake, who has joined Hearts, and must find a replacement before their opener against Kilmarnock on Sunday.
The new season begins at Tannadice, 228 games across ten months. Whether the Old Firm duopoly truly reasserts itself, or another side emerges to complicate the picture, will become clear soon enough.
