Scottish Premiership PREVIEW 9 Sep 2026: Celtic defend a perfect start in Perth while Rangers, without Shankland, try to climb past St Mirren

Two midweek fixtures, and the champions-elect narrative meets a pair of upstarts. St Johnstone host Celtic with Martin O'Neill's side, per Sports Mole, defending a flawless record: "The Bhoys have won all of their first five matches in the league, scoring a league-high 13 goals and conceding a league-low three times during that period." Simo Valakari frames Perth's part plainly: "We worked so hard last year to get our promotion, to play in these matches, to be here, to play against Celtic", and "We need to do our football things so well, then at the same time, we need to earn our luck." Celtic travel with a lengthening treatment list — Sports Mole names "Callum Osmand, Kieran Tierney, Kasper Hogh, Alistair Johnston and Jota" among the concerns, though O'Neill offered movement on two: "We've got Kasper Hogh back the last couple of days, Kieran Tierney did a little bit of work with us this morning first time back." The unavailable Yang Hyun-Jun, a scorer in Saturday's 2-1 win at St Mirren, drew the manager's regret: "He will be a big miss for us. He's playing exceptionally well... I think he's just responded to a bit of encouragement." O'Neill also paid the hosts a compliment with a nod across this same card: "There's a vitality about them which is very, very encouraging. Not dissimilar in many aspects to what Craig McLeish is doing at St Mirren." St Johnstone's only doubt is Jamie Gullan, "unlikely to feature after being forced off 22 minutes into their win against Hibernian."

At Ibrox the table stakes are unusually direct: per Sports Mole, "Rangers will be hoping to move above their visitors with a win on Wednesday." Derek McInnes must do it without Lawrence Shankland — "ruled out after being forced off with an injury last time out", alongside Youssef Chermiti, Jose Cifuentes and Tuur Rommens — and he is backing Bojan Miovski to carry the line: "Bojan's goals per game in Scotland is very strong. He's trained brilliantly." St Mirren arrive missing five of their own ("Jonah Ayunga, Killian Phillips, Keanu Baccus, Malik Dijksteel and Liam Donnelly") and smarting from Saturday, when "after taking a 1-0 lead thanks to Nikolas Agrafiotis's penalty, goals from Liam Scales and Yang Hyun-Jun secured a 2-1 victory for Celtic." Craig McLeish's ask, back at the ground where his side lost a cup tie 5-1 last month, is about nerve: "The message to the group is just try to show that bravery and personality and how we're trying to play from the very start of the games", adding "I am really happy with where we're at, but I still think there's so much more to come from the group."