Two Scotsmen reporters explain why Celtic won’t win the SPFL title

Two of the remaining football reporters at The Scotsman are predicting that Celtic won’t finish the season as SPFL champions. 

Of 19 bookmakers listed by Oddschecker all of them have Celtic at odds on with their Ibrox rivals at odds against. 

At 7.30am on the day before the season kicks off the best odds that you can find on Ange Postecoglou’s squad is a skinny 4/6 while Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side are available at 13/10. 

There isn’t much to split the two Glasgow clubs but that is mainly down to the complete lack of credibility in the other 10 clubs who haven’t mustered a league win since 1985. Any romantics out there can have Hearts at 80/1 or Hibs at 150/1. 

Celtic go into the new season on a 32 match unbeaten run in the SPFL. In the 18 matches since the turn of the year they won 15 and drew 3 with no reason to suspect that sort of form is about to collapse. 

Giving the pre-season predictions of their football experts, The Scotsman reports:  

David Oliver: Premiership: Rangers -Two dynamic attacking teams, but Gers’ home advantage in the post-split Old Firm could have massive sway going into the final days. 

Matthew Elder: Premiership: Rangers -With their vast strength in depth,it’s hard to see either of the Old Firm dropping points against anyone bar each other. That will make the derbies all-important and with seven new arrivals Gio’s squad now looks better equipped to handle them than last season. 

In three SPFL derby matches after last summer’s transfer window closed Celtic took seven points out of nine. Turning a six point deficit in January into a four point advantage in May is no mean achievement in such a lop-sided contest.

Every opinion is valid on the day before the new season starts but Elder and Oliver have very little to back up their claims other than the fall of the fixtures.