Richard Gordon takes his monthly look at the Scottish Premiership:
With all the Premiership clubs having played each other now, and international football being put to bed until the spring-time, we are about to enter a period which will go a long way towards deciding how this season will shape up.
Celtic finally hit the top with their victory at Pittodrie just before the Scotland matches, and the likelihood is that is where they will stay for the remainder of the campaign.
That said, we do have a much more competitive looking league table than at the same stage 12 months ago. Currently, the top seven clubs are separated by just six points while last season that gap was 15. Celtic lead on goal difference right now - in 2013 they were five ahead of nearest challengers Caley Thistle.
Inverness CT, Dundee United and Aberdeen all have similar tallies to this time last year. The big losers from back then are Motherwell, who have a dozen points fewer, and have much work to do if they are to claim another top-six finish.
Hamilton Accies and Dundee have both made blistering starts to their returns to the top flight, while Kilmarnock have improved significantly, more than doubling their haul from their first 13 games played.
Of the others, Partick Thistle are two points better off while Ross County and St Mirren haven’t performed as well, hence their positions propping up the table.
A glance at the league might suggest that the bottom five clubs are already in danger of tailing off, but the Premiership is so tight this season, and there is so little between the teams, that margin can quite easily be closed, particularly given the number of head-to-heads coming up over the next few weeks.
It is also worth remembering that last season Hibernian were 13 points clear of the play-off place just after the New Year, and still seven points ahead with just seven games to go. We all know what happened to them.
St Mirren have shown faith in Tommy Craig, while County made the switch and look slowly to be making progress under the guidance of Jim McIntyre. That 3-0 victory at Kilmarnock last time out will have given them a huge confidence boost, but they will need to build on that. That is the kind of result Saints have been crying out for and, if they can at last find their goal touch, they can perhaps start to put some pressure on those above them.
Motherwell currently sit in 10th place, buoyed by their win over Dundee United, and will hope to benefit further from the new manager bounce clubs so often seem to experience. In any case, there should be too much talent at Fir Park for them to be floundering for much longer.
Scottish Cup ties apart, there is a demanding and unbroken schedule ahead in the Premiership, and by the time we hit early 2015 things might well look very different.
The only thing we can guarantee is that it will be next to impossible to predict exactly how it’s all going to pan out.
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