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Football | Monday, July 25, 2022 4:06 PM (Revised at: Monday, July 25, 2022 4:07 PM)

Scottish Premiership Opening Gameweek Table: Old Firm Clubs Battle at the Top

Scottish Premiership Opening Gameweek Table: Old Firm Clubs Battle at the Top
PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo

The 2022-23 Scottish Premiership starts this weekend and we at bettingexpert have run the numbers to see which teams perform the best in their opening games.

We sourced Scottish Premiership stats from Opta, from the 1998-99 season to the 2021-22 season and created a league table to show the best and worst performers in the opening gameweek.


Celtic untouched at the top

With 67 points from 24 games since 1998-99, Celtic are the best performers in the opening gameweek in the Scottish Premiership.

Rangers, despite playing 4 fewer games, are second in this table with 47 points followed by Hearts with 37 points.

Only two other teams have played as many opening gameweek matches as Celtic – Aberdeen and Motherwell. The Dons, with 31 points in the opening gameweek sit 5th in table, just a point shy of Hibernian. Motherwell sit at 6th, with 26 points from 24 games since 1998-99.

The top two – Celtic and Rangers – are far ahead of the others but we do see a battle for 3rd, 4th and 5th with just a six point separation between 3rd and 5th.

From this top five, Celtic and Aberdeen will be facing each other in the opening gameweek of the 2022-23 Scottish Premiership.


The Worst Performers?

Gretna, who featured in the 2007-08 Scottish Premiership and struggled due to dire financial problems, have the worst record during the opening gameweek.

The now-defunct club played Falkirk in their first ever Scottish Premiership (then the SPL) game and lost 0-4.

To be fair to Gretna, they only played once in Scottish football’s top flight. The same can’t be said for the second-worst side in the opening gameweek – Hamilton Academical.

The Accies picked up only five points from 10 games in the opening gameweek since 1998-99. They ended up losing nine times, drawing twice and winning once.

Falkirk, who were victorious over worst-performers Gretna in 2007-08, are themselves the third worst with six points from five opening gameweek matches.


The teams who scored the most points per game

As teams have not played an equal number of games in the opening gameweek, when we take points per game as the primary performance indicator, Celtic still top the table.

The Bhoys have amassed 2.63 points per game, a tad bit higher than the 2.35 posted by arch-rivals Rangers.

Hearts and Hibs follow the Old Firm rivals with 1.68 and 1.6 ppg respectively. The 5th ranking team in this case is interesting – Partick Thistle with 1.43 points per game.

Hamilton Academical (0.5) and Gretna are still the bottom two but Falkirk are not the third-worst in this case. St. Johnstone with 0.88 ppg are the third worst, followed narrowly by Dunfermline Athletic (0.89 ppg).


The most played matchups in the opening weekend

We’ve seen four matchups happen five times in the opening gameweek since 1998-99.

Rangers against Kilmarnock Aberdeen against Dundee United, St. Johnstone against Hearts and Motherwell against Hibs are the matchups we’ve seen the most during the opening gameweek in the Scottish top flight.

That record will remain unchanged, at least for another season.


Scottish Premiership Opening Gameweek Table


Methodology

  • We sourced Scottish Premiership opening gameweek stats from OPTA
  • We used these stats to create a table which can be sorted as per the following data - games played, points, points per game, goal difference, wins, draws and losses
  • The time span for this data is from the 1998-99 season to the 2021-22 season

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