William Hill Scottish Premiership opening weekend preview

Since the culmination of the European Championships this summer, football fans all over are eagerly anticipating the start of the domestic season.

Celtic were last season’s victors and come back again this campaign in pursuit of winning their third straight league title in the Scottish Premiership.

Ahead of the opening weekend, Brendan Rodgers and The Hoops are solid favourites having performed exceedingly well in their preseason, most notably slotting four past Premier League champions Manchester City in a friendly a couple of weeks ago, winning 4-3.

Naturally, their main contenders for the title will be Rangers, headed by coach Philippe Clement, who will be looking to pick up their first Scottish Premiership title since the 2020/21 season.

We look at both of their opening games below.

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Hearts v Rangers – Saturday 3rd August 12:30

Rangers are second favourites at 15/8 to pick up the title this season, but are odds-on at 6/10 to win three points in their opener against Hearts away from home who are 15/4 outsiders.

As far as first games go, Rangers have a real tough one to start. Hearts came third last season, 13 points shy of Rangers and this will be a massive opportunity for either team to kick off proceedings on the front foot.

The home side, Hearts, will be praying that Rangers’ poor showing in their preseason will spill into the first game of the season, as Philippe Clement’s squad doesn’t seem to have been sufficiently replenished following some hefty outgoings in Conor Goldson, Jon McLaughlin and Ryan Jack as well as others. Talented Lawrence Shankland leads the anytime goalscorer market at 7/4, with Musa Drammeh (29/10) and Liam Boyce (7/2) trailing behind.

For Rangers, they’ll be relying on players such as Danilo (6/4), Cyriel Dessers (29/20) and Vaclav Cerny (19/10) to hit the back of the net, which Rangers managed to do 72 times across 33 games last season. They finished on a goal difference of 49, having conceded just 23 over the course of the season, the fewest of all teams.

Should they manage to bounce back to form, we fancy Rangers to pick up three points in the opener.

Celtic v Kilmarnock – Sunday 4th August 16:30

Celtic head into the season as 4/9 favourites for the title, with their record last season proving them worthy of that short price.

Celtic are at home against Kilmarnock for the first game of the season and look in pole position to top the table after the opener, having beaten two of the Premier League’s top clubs in Man City, winning 4-3, and Chelsea, who they embarrassed in a 4-1 victory in preseason. Although a close contest at one point, The Hoops ran away with the title last season ending on five consecutive wins on 93 points, leaving their rivals in the dust.

Clearly on a hot streak of goalscoring, at 3/20 Celtic are overwhelming favourites for this clash, with James Forrest even-money to etch his name onto the scoresheet, whilst regular scorers Matthew O’Riley (11/10) and Kyogo Furuhashi (19/20) look poised to make their own impacts, too.

Kilmarnock, although finishing a respectable fourth last season, are not favoured in the market with the large price of 14/1 to kick off their season by beating the two-time consecutive champions. That said, there are three players who head the betting to score anytime at 9/2, which are Marley Watkins, Kyle Vassell and Bruce Anderson – and are all capable of doing so.

We think that Celtic to win, both teams not to score, over 2.5 Celtic goals and James Forrest to score anytime in the match looks the value at 4/1 using William Hill’s Bet Builder function.