Scottish Premiership title odds: Rangers set for fresh Old Firm battle
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The new Scottish Premiership season gets under way on July 31 and champions Rangers are hot favourites for a successful defence in the Scottish Premiership title odds.
Gers won the trophy for the first time in a decade, going through the whole season unbeaten as they finished 25 points clear of arch rivals Celtic.
Steven Gerrard’s men are 4/9 in the Scottish Premiership title odds but let’s look at their prospects and some of the other contenders ahead of the new campaign.
Rangers
Gers won all 19 matches at Ibrox last season in addition to 13 away games as they finally ended Celtic’s 10-year domination of Scottish football.
The Light Blues won three and drew one of the Old Firm meetings but would still have finished top of the pile had they lost all four such was their supremacy last season.
Star striker Alfredo Morelos has been linked with a move away from Ibrox but Gerrard is bound to have something up his sleeve should the Colombian leave the club.
Celtic
The Hoops had a turbulent season in which manager Neil Lennon resigned in February with Celtic 18 points behind Rangers in the Scottish Premiership table.
John Kennedy took the reins until the end of the campaign but failed to stop the rot and so the Celtic board turned to Australian Ange Postecoglou as their new manager on a 12-month rolling contract.
📸 from Ange Postecoglou's busy first day at Paradise! 🇦🇺
See more of our new Manager on Twitter Fleets 🎦🎙️#WelcomeAnge 👋🍀
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) June 25, 2021
The former Australia coach has never managed a club in Europe having spent the last three seasons with Japanese outfit Yokohama F Marinos, who won the title in 2019.
Postecoglou has plenty on his plate and must decide whether to take up a year’s option on Leigh Griffiths while top scorer Odsonne Edouard, Ryan Christie and Kristoffer Ajer are likely to leave during the final year of their contracts.
Influential captain Scott Brown has also left the club to join Aberdeen as a player-coach so it promises to be another tough season for the Bhoys, who are 11/8 to wrest the league trophy from Rangers in the Scottish Premiership title odds.
Aberdeen
As usual it is expected to be a two-horse race in Scotland with Aberdeen and Hibernian the best of the rest at 80/1 to be crowned champions.
The Dons won just one of their last six games to finish in fourth place last season and went out early in both cup competitions while a defeat to Sporting Lisbon meant they failed to qualify for the group stage of the Europa League.
Stephen Glass took over from Derek McInnes in March and he has already made his mark by appointing Brown as a player assistant having rejected a new one-year contract at Parkhead.
Glass still has to convince Lewis Ferguson to stay at Pittodrie after the talented midfielder slapped in a transfer request amid interest from Watford having lost both Scott McKenna and Sam Cosgrove to Championship clubs in England last season.
Hibernian
Jack Ross steered Hibs to third place for the first time in 16 years and hopes are high the former Sunderland manager will have another successful season.
The Hibees also reached the Scottish Cup final and the last four of the League Cup and this season they hope to compete in the inaugural Europa Conference League.
However, skipper David Gray retired because of an injury and joined Ross’ backroom staff and there is uncertainty surrounding the future of Scotland striker Kevin Nisbet, who has been linked with a move to Premier League newcomers Brentford, so there is work to be done at Easter Road.
All odds and markets correct as of date of publication
