Three Points Separate The Top Three!
Officially the closest top flight three horse title race in decades.
Hearts lost at Rugby Park on Saturday evening, in what was their third consecutive away loss (Kilmarnock 1-0, Rangers 4-2, St. Mirren 1-0). To put that in perspective, the Jambos have only lost 2 of the other 27 league matches this season! Losing three in a row away from home at such a crucial time has severely dented their title hopes.
But they’re still top. And the title is still in their own hands.
In fact, after Celtic came from behind to beat Motherwell, and Rangers struggled past St. Mirren in Paisley - for the first time in several months, each of the top three can say that the title is mathematically ‘in their own hands’.
If any of the top three sides win their remaining eight matches then they will be crowned Scottish Premiership Champions*, in what is officially the closest three horse title race for nearly 30 years. (*technically Rangers could still lose the title on goal difference with 8/8 wins, if Hearts won 7/8 with a better GD).
Three points separate the top three teams after 30 matches for the first time since 1998.
In season 1997/98, Rangers were aiming to make it ten-in-a-row, but after 30 matches found themselves trailing a resurgent Celtic under Wim Jansen AND Jim Jeffries’ Hearts - who themselves lead the way for much of the season.
With six matches left in what was a 36 match 10-team league format, leaders Celtic dropped points at Ibrox (lost 2-0), East End Park (drew 1-1) and Celtic Park (drew 0-0 with Hibs). However, the Hoops’ form was still enough to take the title, ultimately finishing two points ahead of Rangers and seven clear of a Hearts side that only won 1 of the last six matches.
Rangers won more of the remaining games than both Celtic and Hearts (won 4/6), but saw damaging defeats at Pittodrie and Rugby Park cost Walter Smith the title in the final season of his first spell. Incredibly, Celtic only won four of their last nine matches that season yet still took the title on the final day of the season, beating St. Johnstone 2-0 at Celtic Park.
Back to the present day, and although there will likely still be many twists and turns this season, you would suspect whoever wins the league won’t get away with winning only four of the last nine matches this time.
Whatever happens, it looks like being an unmissable end to the season. Celtic are probably favourites now, grinding out results while Hearts continue to slip up. Despite many Rangers fans ruling themselves out after failing to beat Celtic, the Gers are now unbeaten in 13 league games, their longest unbeaten league run for three years.
Unfortunately it looks like it won’t be Motherwell, after they lost 3-1 at Celtic on Saturday despite taking the lead through the brilliant Elijah Just. Celtic have lost only 1 of 32 home matches against Motherwell (last was December 2015), and so this was thee season for Motherwell to end that run. Despite playing well in both matches at Parkhead, the Well suffered two defeats and conceded six goals. It’s matches like this - against fellow top six sides - that will cost Motherwell a chance at achieving the unthinkable. They’ve only won two of 12 matches against top six sides, taking 18 fewer points than Hearts have in such matches.
Of course, the Steelmen have played the least number of matches against top six teams, and so all of their remaining fixtures will be against fellow top six sides. But even if they beat Hibs, Falkirk and Hearts before the split, they’ll still have taken nine points less than Hearts have against top six sides. A lot of these matches have been decided by fine margins, but in a low scoring sport like football, the fine margins need to go your way to keep you in a title race over 38 matches. Especially when the league table is at it’s tightest since 1998!
If you missed it last month, you can read about the expected post-split fixtures for all twelve Premiership clubs:
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Best season by a million miles this year. (Perhaps you could run a quick stats check to make sure I've got that distance correct?)
And it's been made all the better by the collection of articles like this which have really put it in perspective all along.
Imagine the Jambos winning on GD!
Justice after 40 years.
Any draw for Hearts is going to feel like a defeat now. They simply need to keep winning in order to keep putting the pressure on the Old Firm. I don’t know what the impact will be psychologically if they were to be overtaken this late in the season when they’ve practically been top of the league throughout the whole season. Looks like Celtic have the easiest run in before the split as their remaining 3 opponents are in the bottom six with 2 out of those 3 clubs having nothing left to play for (Dundee clubs).