Celtic to start Scottish Premiership defence at St Johnstone

Celtic will be off to St Johnstone for the first step on their quest to land a ninth consecutive Scottish Premiership crown. Neil Lennon's side will kick-off at the traditional 3.00 time on Saturday, August 3rd in McDiarmid Park.

Steven Gerrard's Rangers get the pursuit of their Glasgow rivals Celtic underway the following day. Rangers travel to Kilmarnock on Sunday, August 4th for a lunch-time kick-off at Rugby Park.

Among the other opening-weekend fixtures, promoted Ross County host Hamilton and Aberdeen will entertain Hearts.

Old Firm

The first of the season's Old Firm's clashes will be at Ibrox on the last day of August. last season all of the four Old Firm games were won by the home side, Steven Gerrard will be hoping that is the case on August 31st.

The first of the Edinburgh derbies will be at Easter Road on September 21st.

The Scottish Premiership stops for a winter break after the fixtures on 29 December and resumes on 22 January, with the campaign ending on the weekend of 16-17 May

A ninth consecutive Scottish Premiership crown for Celtic would be a record-equalling feat for Neil Lennon's men, both Celtic and Rangers reached that success in the past. Rangers did it most recently when winning the famous nine in a row in 1997.

Juggle

Celtic will be juggling Champions League duties with their tricky opening fixture list which includes Motherwell, Hearts, Hamilton and Kilmarnock in their first half dozen games.

"Hopefully at that time we're still negotiating Champions League as well," Celtic manager Neil Lennon told Sky Sports. "It's a reasonable start but quite dicey."

The full opening weekend's fixtures

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