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Celtic are going for an unprecedented 10th consecutive Scottish league title
Editorial credit: TreasureGalore \/ Shutterstock.com<\/p><\/div>\n
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1st Celtic<\/h2>\n
Brendan Rodgers may have departed for challenges new in the English Premier League with Leicester, but Celtic still have the strongest squad in the division and the experience of winning. They also have the biggest budget allowing them to add to the squad come transfer time again. Losing Left-Back Kieran Tierney was not ideal but the near \u00a325m will swell the coffers a bit and they have added to their already winning squad with some nice defensive additions in Christopher Jullien, Boli Bolingoli\u00a0 & Hatem Abd Elhamed all of whom are experienced, top-level players.<\/p>\n
Playing legend and former manager Neil Lennon is also back in charge and although Europe might prove a distraction (or not as the case may be given their recent struggles in the competitions). The gap between them and Rangers is closing but we doubt it will be this year that the reigning champions are dethroned.<\/p>\n
2nd Rangers<\/h2>\n
Steven Gerrard has done a lot to turn the club around but despite investing heavily t last season they still ended nine points off the top and didn’t reach a cup final. Spending has been much more subdued this year with only Filip\u00a0Helander commanding a seven-figure transfer fee. Still, they have not lost anyone of note and they have a couple of decent loan signings in Sheyi\u00a0Ojo & Andy King. Free transfers Joe Aribo & Greg Stewart are from English Championship teams, and while both have talent Stewart failed to shine after his loan was switched from Kilmarnock to Aberdeen last term.\u00a0 It should be closer but Rangers don’t look capable of closing a 9 point gap with this squad.<\/p>\n
3rd Aberdeen<\/h2>\n
The Dons finished fourth last season behind Kilmarnock on goal difference and were 20 points off the winners. having seen Leicester win the English Premier League you should never write any team off but we are 99.999% recurring certain that Aberdeen won’t finish top and third is their ceiling.\u00a0 They have had a bit of a rebuild in the close season, but when your only paid for transfer comes from an English League Two team then your ambitions are clear.<\/p>\n
4th Heart Of Midlothian<\/h2>\n
A few free transfers are not enough to see Hearts progress into anything like title contenders and they might struggle to hold off fellow Edinburgh side Hibs in the battle for a Europa League place.<\/p>\n
5th Hibernian<\/h2>\n
Hibs have spent a bit on Christian Doidge from Forest Green Rovers and adding Scott Allen from Celtic means they will be in the top half. They could push for a top-four finish<\/p>\n
6th Kilmarnock<\/h2>\n
Overachieved a bit last season largely thanks to loan signing Greg Stewart who is now at Rangers. A bit of a fall back is due but still should finish top half. It will be interesting to see how Laurentiu\u00a0Branescu on loan from Juventus fares in the SPL.<\/p>\n
7th Ross County<\/h2>\n
Came up as champions last season – thanks largely to their goal-scoring prowess. They have kept the core of the promotion squad intact, brought back their loanees and have added Goalie Ross Laidlaw from Hibs. If Josh Miller & Billy McKay among others can reproduce their 2018-19 form then County could even push for a top-six place.<\/p>\n
8th Motherwell<\/h2>\n
A few new faces all on free transfers should mean they hang around mid-table. However when a likely first-team player Jermaine Hylton is a free transfer from an English Non-League club you can see the limit of the Steelmen’s ambitions. Declan\u00a0Gallagher looks a nice signing though and they should\u00a0avoid any relegation fears though.<\/p>\n
9th St Johnstone<\/h2>\n
The player ins & outs pretty much sum up The Saints ceiling. Seven experienced players gone,\u00a0 replaced by two youth players a backup goalie and a loan signing from Estonia. With a small squad and no real prospects of strengthening in January avoiding the drop, and maybe a good cup run is about as much as fans should expect.<\/p>\n
Relegation Candidates<\/h2>\n10th Livingston<\/h2>\n
After a good start, Livingstone fell off a cliff in the new year winning only four games and sliding down to 9th. The work they did pre January meant they were never in trouble, however, if that form carries over things will be bleak. The probability of this happening looks quite high thanks to the high profile departures of Craig Halkett to Hearts, Liam Kelly to QPR &\u00a0Declan Gallagher to Motherwell.<\/p>\n
11th Hamilton<\/h2>\n
Manager Brian Rice has made wholesale changes this year in an attempt to find that elusive spark, including bringing in Markus\u00a0Fj\u00f6rtoft from New Zealand. Changes were needed as the Accies only scored 28 league goals last term while conceding 75! The old saying rang true for them “when they were good they were very very good but when they were bad they were awful”. For example, their season-best win 2-0 at Aberdeen was bookended by 3-0 and 5-0 drubbings. They have a big squad and the odds favour at least one new arrival shining so we think they will stay off the bottom but might end up in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
12th St Mirren<\/h2>\n
Stayed up lat season by narrowly beating Dundee United on penalties in the playoff final, which was revenge for their loss to them in the Scottish Cup. They managed 8 wins in the league and most of these were against fellow strugglers. They have been quite active in the transfer market however when you weigh up the arrivals against the departures, the squad actually looks weaker. Unless they get the breaks again this year relegation looks probable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This could be a historic season with Celtic going for a perfect 10 to complement last seasons completion of the treble – treble. Rangers who jointly hold the record with nine consecutive titles will have plenty to say though and the likes of Aberdeen & Hearts although not genuine contenders will look to make life…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[217,272,350,570,824,825],"tags":[589,793,1970,1971,811],"class_list":["post-9218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glasgow-celtic","category-heart-of-midlothian","category-hibernian","category-rangers","category-scottish-football","category-scottish-premier","tag-aberdeen","tag-glasgow-celtic","tag-hearts","tag-hiberian","tag-rangers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9218"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9230,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9218\/revisions\/9230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}