Old Firm Split

An interesting story is developing north of the border with pre-season title favourites Celtic struggling not only to keep pace with Rangers, but even unfashionable Motherwell. With almost a third of the campaign already gone, Neil Lennon’s side languish in third spot; 10 points adrift of their Glasgow rivals and three points behind the Fir Park outfit. The Hoops do have a game in hand on both, but their SPL odds tell their own story; Celtic are now 2/1 with SkyBet, while Rangers are nothing longer than 1/2 with VictorChandler.

Celtic’s plight seemed to be careering out of control on Saturday when they trailed 3-0 to Kilmarnock with 17 minutes remaining. A dramatic late comeback to 3-3 saved their blushes, to some extent, before Rangers were also held to a 1-1 draw with St Mirren at Ibrox. All this was great news for Motherwell who made it three wins on the spin with a 1-0 victory at Hibernian. A few more weekends like this one and their title odds will be slashed from the current 150/1 that WilliamHill are offering.

Understandably ‘Well boss Stuart McCall is desperately trying to dampen expectations with the Old Firm having only been split in the final league standings once since 1995. Hearts were the only team to break the Glasgow strangehold on the top two places when they pushed Rangers down to third in 2005-06. The ‘Jam Tarts’ are still favourites to win the ‘without Rangers & Celtic’ market at 5/6 with Bet365. Motherwell are underdogs for that as well (5/2 SkyBet), despite currently sitting four points ahead of the Edinburgh side having played the same number of games.