The mathematics of it are complicated enough. In the middle of next month, as it has for a quarter of a century, the Scottish Premiership will undergo its split. The top six and the bottom six in the table will be separated; for the final five games of the campaign, they will play only the teams around them.
Every season, it tasks the executive of the Scottish Professional Football League with unpicking a particularly tangled knot: how to make sure each team, in each section, ends up with 19 games at home and 19 away. Occasionally, perfect symmetry eludes them and compromise is needed: one team sacrificing a home tie or visiting an opponent three times rather than twice.
That always has consequences, of course. The fixtures after the split can have an impact on which teams qualify for Europe or whether a club are relegated. Ordinarily, though, as long as the SPFL has been able to strike a balance for Celtic and Rangers, then the title race – when there is one – has always remained largely unaffected. As a rule, clubs accept the idea that “abnormalities”, as one executive put it, are unavoidable.
This year, by contrast, the challenge borders on the Gordian, for the simple reason that there are not two teams competing for the title, but four. Hearts currently sit four points ahead of Rangers; Celtic are two points further back, with a game in hand. Fan-owned Motherwell, remarkably, are still in touch, too, having lost just three league games all season and with one of the best defensive records in Europe.
Should the top six remain in place when the league divides next month, Hearts would be due to play just one more game – against Rangers – at home. The rest of their fixtures would be away.
Rangers and Motherwell would be slated to play 20 home games; Celtic, like Hearts, would end the season with just 18. Maintaining sporting integrity will require more than a little finessing.
How that might work is a matter of ongoing speculation. The logistics are one thing; the politics of the split, for the first time in many years, are genuinely fiendish. It is no exaggeration to say that how the SPFL’s executive – led by chief executive Neil Doncaster, chief operating officer Calum Beattie and chair Murdoch MacLennan – resolve the calendar might have an outsized effect on the destiny of the title.
In many ways, that is a measure of just how closely fought this season has been. Scotland is not quite home to the most finely poised title race in Europe – Poland’s top seven clubs are separated by four points and Austria’s top five by five, although both have played far fewer games – but by Scottish standards, it has been compelling.
Even Chris Sutton, the curmudgeonly face of the Scottish game to the English public, has been moved to describe the title race as “amazing”. It is not an adjective he uses lightly, or often.
‘Motherwell have attracted rather less attention, but may be an even more extraordinary story’
‘Motherwell have attracted rather less attention, but may be an even more extraordinary story’
After years of untrammelled Celtic dominance – and decades of unbroken Glaswegian hegemony – even Sir Alex Ferguson, a former Rangers player, has found it refreshing. Derek McInnes, the Hearts manager, has been in regular contact with him all season; he is “pretty sure” that Ferguson is hoping Hearts can hold on to claim a first championship in 41 years.
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Part of that, of course, should be attributed to the failings of Celtic and Rangers. Both have been held back by ill-considered managerial appointments: Rangers won just once in the league before sacking Russell Martin early in October; Celtic, having already parted company with Brendan Rodgers, fired Wilfried Nancy after only 33 days in January. He had taken charge of eight games and lost six of them.
Just as pertinently, Celtic’s haphazard recruitment and the club’s apparent lack of ambition has attracted fierce criticism from their own fanbase.
Celtic’s budget, swollen by years of European prize money, outstrips that of Rangers and dwarfs those of Hearts and Motherwell; it is hard to quibble with the idea that being caught, and possibly overtaken, by one or all of them represents an abject failure.
That, though, is only half of the story. Hearts’ rise – powered by investment from Tony Bloom, exclusive Scottish use of Bloom-adjacent Jamestown Analytics data and quietly accelerated by the billionaire philanthropist James Anderson – has been well documented. McInnes’s side have been top of the Scottish Premiership for 22 weeks, somehow riding out an injury crisis that is currently sidelining 12 players.
Motherwell have attracted rather less attention, but may be an even more extraordinary story. When he was appointed last summer, the highlight of Jens Berthel Askou’s managerial career was winning a league and cup double in the Faroe Islands. He had unremarkable spells with Horsens, in his native Denmark, and IFK Gothenburg. In Scotland, he has been a revelation. Motherwell have lost just once at home; they have conceded only one goal at Fir Park in the league since October.
“The statistics make it sound like he’s a defensive manager,” Sutton said. “He’s not. If you ask most fans, honestly, who the best team to watch in Scotland is, they’d say Motherwell. Normally when teams beat Celtic they do it on the counter-attack. Their goalkeeper has to have a good day. Motherwell wiped the floor with them in December.”
In time, Askou’s burgeoning reputation might make his stay at Motherwell relatively brief; he is unlikely to be short of suitors this summer, however the season plays out from here.
That will, of course, depend on whether Motherwell can sustain their form, whether Hearts can handle the pressure, whether Rangers and Celtic can put their feet to the floor. It is a sporting challenge. But as the SPFL knows, it is also a logistical one.
Photography by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images