Lessons from opening weekend of the 07/08 SPL season

Everybody hopes - and expects - that the SPL title race will be a more closely contested affair this time around. The season previews were remarkably consistent, but the Guardian and the Beeb both summed it up pretty well... Rangers should push Celtic a lot harder than in the past 2 years.

While excitement and unpredictability are always welcome, there a couple of specific reasons why the SPL needs to put on a good show this season. For one, Celtic are chasing their 3-in-a-row, and it would be a tragedy if it was handed to them on a plate. Such an achievement should remain special and rare, and if Celtic get the hat-trick with ease it will confirm all the stereotypes about an uncompetitive, dull league. Hopefully, the 9-in-a-row achievements of both Old Firm clubs will remain in the history books for the same reason.

Secondly, Setanta is helping the SPL to access a potentially huge new audience. Their deal to screen live English Premiership football is attracting a lot of subscribers down south, who will be getting SPL matches as well by default. Scottish football can win some of these "accidental" viewers over - but only if the product is good enough. While the EPL has been very good at exploiting other markets as lucrative additional income streams, the SPL has not... but the opportunity now exists to market the competition more widely.

The opening fixtures suggest that things will, indeed, be closer between the top two. Rangers have surprised by doing a lot of business in the summer - in fact Walter Smith admits that they are now "over-budget". The chairman will be having kittens at the mounting losses, but the result is a squad that looks much more resilient. Lee McCulloch is exactly the sort of player who should thrive in the SPL, while there is now more competition for places across the team. Their first match was a decent marker to throw down, even if Inverness Caley Thistle were punchless.
Celtic have also strengthened over the summer, but a poor pre-season has been followed by a poor goalless draw against Kilmarnock. The squad looks strangely unbalanced, too... they now have about 40 strikers on the books, but little cover at full-back, for example. They remain favourites, of course, but need to improve, especially up front.

It would be nice to think a fresh challenge might come from somewhere else in the league, but that looks as unikely as ever. Aberdeen, drowning in debt, will be doing well to repeat last season's third place. The supposed arrival of Hearts as a major new force still looks more hype than reality, while Hibs' determination to rebrand themselves as the East Scotland Football Academy will rule out any thoughts of a sustained title challenge coming from Easter Road. Selling your best players to your rivals is not the way to win a championship. They will probably maintain their reputation for being the most watchable football team in the division, however.

Dundee Utd are probably the most likely candidates to join the top six, with Kilmarnock reliant on Steven Naismith staying if they are going to stay in the top half of the table. Motherwell should also do better under Mark McGee.

St Mirren and Falkirk should continue to establish themselves as SPL clubs, ICT might find themselves drifting closer to the bottom of the table, but they won't fear relegation because Gretna are surely going right back down. The fairytale is over.

If one more good thing comes out of this season, it might be the year that Scottish football finally, and decisively, gets to grips with the problem of sectarian chanting and singing. Rangers' first match was marred by the "Fuck the Pope" brigade - much more of that, and the authorities will be forced to act. It's about time.