Seven games into the Scottish Premiership season, the early shape of the title race is easier to describe than to explain. Celtic sit on top with 18 points, Rangers are two points behind in second place, and Hearts, who came agonisingly close to ending a long wait for the championship last season, are a further three back in third. It is a familiar-looking top three with an unfamiliar set of stories behind it, because two of the three clubs have new managers and the third is trying to defend a run of dominance that has already lasted five successive titles. The latest result, a 1-0 win for Rangers at Celtic Park, has made the picture more interesting still.
Celtic’s position at the top of the table is the product of a strong record rather than a flawless one. Their six wins and one defeat from seven games have given them 18 points, and their goal difference of plus ten is the best in the league by some distance, built on 14 goals scored and only four conceded. The one defeat, which the standings suggest was the Old Firm loss at home, stands out because it came against their biggest rival and in front of their own supporters. Even so, the underlying numbers describe a team that has scored freely and defended well, which is exactly the combination that wins championships over a long season.
The attacking numbers are driven in part by the new striker at the heart of the team. Kasper Høgh, described on the LiveScore page as Celtic’s record-breaking £11 million signing, has three league goals and sits among the joint-second top scorers in the division. Expectations around him were high before the season began, with the competition’s preview pointing to him as the player most likely to lead the race for the Golden Boot. Three goals in seven matches is a decent return rather than a spectacular one, but the team’s total of 14 shows that the goals are coming from more than one source, and that is usually a healthier sign for a title challenger than reliance on a single scorer.
The managerial situation at Celtic Park is worth a mention as well. The preview on the page says that Martin O’Neill will continue to manage the club as it heads into the 2026/27 campaign, following a fifth consecutive league title last season. An experienced manager in charge of a settled squad offers a sense of continuity, which matters in a league where the gap between the biggest clubs and the rest is large but not unbridgeable. The challenge for Celtic is to maintain their standards across a long season, including a congested schedule and the temptation to take a lead for granted, and the early results suggest they are doing that well enough.
Rangers, by contrast, are in the midst of a transition. Derek McInnes arrived in the summer after making what the LiveScore preview calls a shock move from Hearts, and he has taken a squad that finished behind Celtic and tried to reshape it in his own image. After seven games, the team has five wins, one draw and one defeat for 16 points, and the goal tally of eight scored and four conceded points to a side that is more comfortable winning tight games than winning big ones. Their goal difference of plus four is the lowest of the three clubs at the top, and it tells a story of narrow margins and a defence that has done its job.
The win at Celtic Park deserves to be seen in that light. A 1-0 victory away to the champions is exactly the type of result that defines a manager’s early reputation, and it carries a significance that goes well beyond the three points. It cut the gap at the top to two points, it showed that Rangers can handle the pressure of the biggest occasions and it provided a moment of vindication for a manager who had to rebuild a team under difficult circumstances. For supporters who had worried about the loss of key attackers to injury, it was a welcome reminder that the side can still produce results when it counts.
That injury picture is a real constraint on how far Rangers can go. Captain Lawrence Shankland, who is shown on the LiveScore page among the league’s joint top scorers with three goals, is out for a long spell with a hamstring tear and is not expected back until the new year. Youssef Chermiti is sidelined for the season with a knee ligament injury, and Daisuke Yokota has been recovering from groin surgery. That leaves McInnes relying on the likes of Ryan Naderi, Kevin Kelsy and Bojan Miovski for goals, along with creative contributions from players such as Kim Min-su and Badredine Bouanani. The fact that Rangers have scored only eight league goals in seven games is perhaps unsurprising in that context.
It is a mark of how closely this story is entwined with Shankland that his three goals still place him among the leading scorers even though he has not played for weeks. The striker was the focus of last season’s Golden Boot discussion, with the preview noting that he scored 16 league goals for Hearts, narrowly missing out to Motherwell’s Tawanda Maswanhise, who finished with 17. The move to his boyhood club was described as a dream, and the early part of the campaign suggested that he was settling in well. The injury has interrupted that story, but the numbers show how quickly he had made an impact before it happened.
Hearts occupy third place with 13 points from seven matches, built on four wins, one draw and two defeats, and they have the second-best goals-for column in the league alongside Celtic, with 14 scored. That figure is encouraging for a team that has lost its manager to a direct rival, because it suggests that the attacking style which took them so close to a title last year has survived the change of coach. On the other hand, they have conceded eight goals, double the number of Celtic and Rangers, and that suggests they are paying a price at the back for their adventure going forward. A goal difference of plus six is respectable but not title-winning.
The Tynecastle story is one of the more interesting subplots of the season. Hearts came agonisingly close to winning their first league title since 1960, and the manner in which they lost McInnes to Rangers added a layer of bitterness to the summer. The man tasked with picking up the pieces is Wouter Vrancken, the new head coach, and the question the preview poses is whether he can continue where his predecessor left off. After seven games, the answer appears to be a qualified yes: the team is still scoring goals, still competing near the top and still capable of results like the 1-1 draw at Kilmarnock, though the defensive record needs attention.
James Wilson is one of the reasons for that optimism. The Hearts striker has three league goals and is among the players level on three at the top of the scoring list, a group that also includes Shankland, Høgh and St Mirren’s Killian Phillips. The leader of the goalscoring chart is Josh Fowler of St Johnstone, who has four, an impressive tally for a player at a club that sits at the lower end of the top six in the available standings. Fowler’s total is a reminder that individual brilliance can emerge anywhere in a league, and that a good striker on a smaller team can keep pace with those playing for the giants.
St Johnstone’s position is interesting in its own right. They have eight points from seven matches, having won two, drawn two and lost three, with nine goals scored and ten conceded. The 1-1 draw with Falkirk in the latest round of fixtures is typical of a team that is competitive but inconsistent, capable of earning points without managing to string wins together. With Fowler leading the scoring chart, they have a genuine goal threat, but the negative goal difference of minus one shows that they have been leaking at the other end. Whether they can improve their defensive solidity will probably determine how far up the table they can climb.
Dundee and St Mirren share the same record in many respects, with ten points each from three wins, one draw and three defeats. Dundee have scored nine and conceded seven for a goal difference of plus two, while St Mirren have scored eight and conceded nine for a goal difference of minus one, and that small difference is what separates fourth from fifth in the extract. The latest round was less kind to St Mirren, who lost 3-0 to Dundee United, a result that will be disappointing for a team hoping to push towards the upper end of the table. Phillips’s three goals show that there is quality in the squad, but consistency has been elusive.
The page lists the remaining positions in terms of a Championship play-off marker, which is simply how the data feed labels the places in the table, and it does not tell us much about the clubs outside the six shown. Dundee United, Hibernian, Aberdeen, Falkirk, Kilmarnock and Motherwell all appear in the results and fixtures lists, which means they are part of the league but outside the portion of the standings I could see. That is worth keeping in mind when judging the shape of the table. The clubs at the top are the ones in the extract, but there may be others within touching distance whose numbers I cannot confirm.
The latest results give a flavour of the competitiveness lower down the table. Hibernian and Aberdeen drew 1-1, Kilmarnock and Hearts drew 1-1, St Johnstone and Falkirk drew 1-1, and St Mirren were beaten 3-0 by Dundee United. Three draws in five fixtures indicates how tight many games are, and it suggests that the gap between the middle of the table and the lower reaches is narrow. For the larger clubs, that is both a warning and an opportunity. A team that loses focus against a well-organised opponent can drop points unexpectedly, while one that remains disciplined can pick up a steady supply of wins.
The upcoming fixtures offer a few interesting tests. On Saturday 10 October, Dundee United face Hibernian, Falkirk host Dundee, Hearts take on St Mirren and Rangers entertain Kilmarnock, with the matches listed at 14:00 in the data. Those times are probably in UTC, which would translate to a 3pm kick-off in the UK. The following day, on Sunday 11 October, Motherwell host Celtic in a game listed for 11:00, which would be a midday start in the UK. The weekend therefore offers both of the top two a chance to extend or protect their positions, and the results will shape the picture before the next international break.
Rangers against Kilmarnock is the match that will draw the most attention from supporters of the Ibrox club. A win would take Rangers to 19 points and put them ahead of Celtic temporarily, though Celtic play the following day and have the chance to restore their lead. Kilmarnock are likely to approach the game in an organised fashion, and as other reports have noted, the question of how Rangers break down deep defences is one that McInnes will have to answer. The creative qualities of Bouanani and Kim Min-su could be important, and the finishing of Naderi and Kelsy will be crucial if the team is to turn possession into goals.
Celtic’s trip to Motherwell has its own significance. Motherwell’s Tawanda Maswanhise won the Golden Boot last season with 17 league goals, and although the opening weeks have not made him the headline scorer in the division, the club remains a difficult place to visit. Celtic will be expected to win, but a team that has conceded four goals in seven matches and lost once will not take anything for granted. The match is also the first for Celtic since the defeat to Rangers, and how they respond will say a lot about the mentality of the squad. A convincing victory would reassert their authority, while a slip would hand momentum to their rivals.
The goal charts offer a few more insights into how the season is shaping up. At team level, Celtic and Hearts both lead with 14 goals, ahead of Dundee on nine. That tells us that scoring has been concentrated in a small number of teams, and that Rangers, with eight, are not among the highest scorers despite being second in the table. It is an unusual profile for a title challenger, and it indicates that the side has been grinding out wins rather than overwhelming opponents. Whether that approach can be sustained over a whole season is open to debate, but it has the advantage of being built on a solid defence, which is typically the foundation of a successful campaign.
Looking at the bigger picture, the early weeks have produced a league with a clear top three and a congested pack behind. Celtic and Rangers are the main contenders, with Hearts hoping to stay close and make the most of any slip. The rest of the division is fighting for the remaining positions and trying to avoid the dangers at the bottom, while hoping for a good cup run or a memorable result against one of the big sides. It is a familiar structure, but the details matter, and the differences in managerial change, injuries and form make this a more unpredictable season than the table alone might suggest.
There is also the matter of the long-running record that hangs over every season, the question of whether anyone can threaten Henrik Larsson’s league record of 35 goals. The preview raised it almost as a matter of tradition, and it is worth noting that nobody on the current scoring charts is anywhere near that pace. Fowler’s four goals in seven games would project to roughly 20 or so over a full campaign, a respectable total but a long way from the record. The point of mentioning it is that the debate about individual scoring never quite goes away, and that supporters will keep an eye on the numbers as the season develops.
The competition is also notable for how many storylines run through it. There is the champion’s quest for a sixth straight title under a veteran manager, the new Rangers boss trying to topple them, the Hearts head coach trying to replace a manager who left for a rival, and a collection of smaller clubs trying to punch above their weight. Each of these threads adds interest to the weekly fixtures, and each has the potential to produce a surprise. For neutrals and partisan supporters alike, that variety is one of the great appeals of the Scottish game.
In practical terms, the next few weeks will shape the early title race. Rangers must keep winning while their key attackers are out, Celtic must prove that the defeat at home was a blip, and Hearts must tighten their defence if they hope to stay in contention. The leading scorers will try to extend their totals, and the clubs below will look for the results that can lift them away from the lower reaches of the table. Every round of fixtures adds to the picture, and a few points either way can change the narrative surprisingly quickly.
For now, the snapshot is clear enough. Celtic lead with 18 points, Rangers follow with 16 after their win at Celtic Park, and Hearts are third with 13, with the rest of the visible table separated by only a few points. The latest results show a competitive league with many tight games, and the coming fixtures will test the top two against Kilmarnock and Motherwell respectively. With the season still young, nothing is settled, but the pattern is set for a lively contest, and it will be fascinating to see how the story unfolds as the nights draw in.
