2019–20 Scottish Premiership

Scottish Premiership 2019-20
Season information
Dates	3 August 2019 – 18 May 2020
Winners	Celtic 7th Premiership title 51st Scottish title
Relegated	Heart of Midlothian
Domestic cup winners
Scottish Cup
Scottish League Cup	Celtic
Continental cup qualifiers
Champions League	Celtic
Europa League	Rangers Motherwell
Season statistics
Matches played	179
Goals scored	490
Average	2.74 (per match)
Top goalscorer	Odsonne Édouard (22 goals)
Biggest home win	Celtic 7–0 St Johnstone (3 August 2019)
Biggest away win	St Johnstone 0–4 Rangers (22 September 2019) Aberdeen 0–4 Celtic (27 October 2019) Ross County 0–4 Rangers (30 October 2019) Motherwell 0–4 Celtic (5 February 2020)
Highest scoring	Celtic 7–0 St Johnstone (3 August 2019) Motherwell 2–5 Celtic (10 August 2019) Rangers 6–1 Hibernian (11 August 2019) Heart of Midlothian 5–2 St Mirren (9 November 2019)
← 2018–19	2020–21 →

The 2019–20 Scottish Premiership (known as the Ladbrokes Premiership for sponsorship reasons) was the seventh season of the Scottish Premiership, the highest division of Scottish football. The fixtures were published on 21 June 2019 and the season began on 3 August 2019. Celtic were the defending champions.

Twelve teams contested the league: Aberdeen, Celtic, Hamilton Academical, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Kilmarnock, Livingston, Motherwell, Rangers, Ross County, St Johnstone and St Mirren.

On 13 March 2020 all SPFL leagues were indefinitely suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The SPFL officially ended the league on 18 May 2020, with average points per game being used for final positions. As a result, Celtic were awarded a ninth consecutive title, and Hearts were relegated.

Teams

The following teams have changed division since the 2018–19 season.

To Premiership

Promoted from Scottish Championship

• Ross County

From Premiership

Relegated to Scottish Championship

• Dundee

Stadia and locations

Aberdeen	Celtic	Hamilton Academical	Heart of Midlothian
Pittodrie Stadium	Celtic Park	New Douglas Park	Tynecastle Park
Capacity: 20,866	Capacity: 60,411	Capacity: 6,018	Capacity: 20,099
Hibernian	Kilmarnock	Livingston	Motherwell
Easter Road	Rugby Park	Almondvale Stadium	Fir Park
Capacity: 20,421	Capacity: 17,889	Capacity: 9,512	Capacity: 13,677
Rangers	Ross County	St Johnstone	St Mirren
Ibrox Stadium	Victoria Park	McDiarmid Park	St Mirren Park
Capacity: 50,817	Capacity: 6,541	Capacity: 10,696	Capacity: 7,937

Personnel and kits

Team	Manager	Captain	Kit manufacturer	Shirt sponsor
Aberdeen	McInnes, DerekDerek McInnes	Lewis, JoeJoe Lewis	Adidas	Saltire Energy
Celtic	Lennon, NeilNeil Lennon	Brown, ScottScott Brown	New Balance	Dafabet
Hamilton Academical	Rice, BrianBrian Rice	Easton, BrianBrian Easton	Adidas	Euro Mechanical Handling
Heart of Midlothian	Stendel, DanielDaniel Stendel	Naismith, StevenSteven Naismith	Umbro	Save the Children
Hibernian	Ross, JackJack Ross	Gray, DavidDavid Gray	Macron	Hibernian Community Foundation
Kilmarnock	Dyer, AlexAlex Dyer	Dicker, GaryGary Dicker	Nike	QTS
Livingston	Holt, GaryGary Holt	Lithgow, AlanAlan Lithgow	Nike	Phoenix Drilling Ltd
Motherwell	Robinson, StephenStephen Robinson	Hartley, PeterPeter Hartley	Macron	Paddy Power (unbranded)
Rangers	Gerrard, StevenSteven Gerrard	Tavernier, JamesJames Tavernier	Hummel	32Red
Ross County	Ferguson, StevenSteven Ferguson and Kettlewell, StuartStuart Kettlewell	Fraser, MarcusMarcus Fraser	Macron	McEwan Fraser Legal
St Johnstone	Cleland, AlecAlec Cleland (caretaker)	Kerr, JasonJason Kerr	Macron	Binn Group
St Mirren	Goodwin, JimJim Goodwin	McGinn, StephenStephen McGinn	Joma	Skyview Capital

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Position in table	Incoming manager	Date of appointment
Kilmarnock	Steve Clarke	Signed by Scotland	20 May 2019	Pre-season	Angelo Alessio	16 June 2019
Celtic	Neil Lennon	End of interim spell	25 May 2019		Neil Lennon	31 May 2019
St Mirren	Oran Kearney	Mutual consent	26 June 2019		Jim Goodwin	29 June 2019
Heart of Midlothian	Craig Levein	Sacked	31 October 2019	11th	Daniel Stendel	7 December 2019
Hibernian	Paul Heckingbottom		4 November 2019	10th	Jack Ross	15 November 2019
Kilmarnock	Angelo Alessio		17 December 2019	5th	Alex Dyer	30 December 2019
St Johnstone	Tommy Wright	Resigned	2 May 2020	7th	Alec Cleland (caretaker)	2 May 2020

Format

Basic

In the initial phase of the season, the 12 teams will play a round-robin tournament whereby each team plays each one of the other teams three times. After 33 games, the league splits into two sections of six teams, with each team playing each other in that section. The league attempts to balance the fixture list so that teams in the same section play each other twice at home and twice away, but sometimes this is impossible. A total of 228 matches were due to be played, with 38 matches played by each team.

League summary

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Celtic  (C)	30	26	2	2	89	19	+70	80	Qualification for the Champions League first qualifying round
2	Rangers	29	21	4	4	64	19	+45	67	Qualification for the Europa League first qualifying round
3	Motherwell	30	14	4	12	41	38	+3	46
4	Aberdeen	30	12	9	9	40	36	+4	45
5	Livingston	30	10	9	11	41	39	+2	39
6	St Johnstone	29	8	12	9	28	46	−18	36
7	Hibernian	30	9	10	11	42	49	−7	37
8	Kilmarnock	30	9	6	15	31	41	−10	33
9	St. Mirren	30	7	8	15	24	41	−17	29
10	Ross County	30	7	8	15	29	60	−31	29
11	Hamilton Academical	30	6	9	15	30	50	−20	27
12	Heart of Midlothian  (R)	30	4	11	15	31	52	−21	23	Relegation to the Championship

Source: BBC Sport
Rules for classification: 1st points; 2nd goal difference; 3rd number of goals scored.
(C) = Champion; (R) = Relegated; (P) = Promoted; (O) = Play-off winner; (A) = Advances to a further round; (Q) = Qualified to the phase of tournament

Season statistics

Scoring

Top scorers

Rank	Player	Club	Goals
1	Odsonne Édouard	Celtic	22
2	Jermain Defoe	Rangers	13
3	Christian Doidge	Hibernian	12
	Alfredo Morelos	Rangers
5	Sam Cosgrove	Aberdeen	11
	Ryan Christie	Celtic
7	James Forrest	Celtic	10

Hat-tricks

Player	For	Against	Score	Date
Ryan Christie	Celtic	St Johnstone	7–0 (H)	3 August 2019
Jermain Defoe	Rangers	Hibernian	6–1 (H)	11 August 2019
Jermain Defoe	Rangers	Hamilton Academical	5–0 (H)	6 October 2019
Christian Doidge	Hibernian	St Johnstone	1–4 (A)	9 November 2019
Lyndon Dykes	Livingston	Ross County	4–0 (H)	21 December 2019
Leigh Griffiths	Celtic	St Mirren	5–0 (H)	7 March 2020

Attendances

These are the average attendances of the teams.

Pos	Team	Total	High	Low	Average	Change
1	Celtic	869,160	59,131	54,584	57,944	0.0028730658728235+0.2%†
2	Rangers	689,327	50,012	47,583	49,237	-0.99340246953434−0.6%†
3	Heart of Midlothian	251,262	19,313	14,681	16,750	-0.95365520382601−4.6%†
4	Hibernian	250,923	20,197	14,486	16,728	-0.94295377677565−5.7%†
5	Aberdeen	207,540	16,410	12,325	13,836	-0.92709729295095−7.2%†
6	Kilmarnock	87,844	9,196	4,083	5,856	-0.84943429068755−15.0%†
7	Motherwell	83,618	8,822	3,191	5,574	0.023127753303965+2.3%†
8	St Mirren	80,647	7,332	4,240	5,376	0.0046720239207625+0.4%†
9	Ross County	65,302	6,575	3,301	4,664	0.21174330995064+21.1%†
10	St Johnstone	65,461	8,743	2,231	4,091	0.051400668208687+5.1%†
11	Livingston	49,598	8,640	1,076	3,542	-0.96670305676856−3.3%†
12	Hamilton Academical	41,044	5,300	1,075	2,565	-0.90668080593849−9.3%†
	League total	2,741,726	59,131	1,075	15,316	-0.95886808990171−4.1%†

Source: ESPN

a.^ Club was playing in the Scottish Championship in the previous season.

Awards

Month	Manager of the Month		Player of the Month		Ref.
	Manager	Club	Player	Club
August	Neil Lennon	Celtic	Odsonne Édouard	Celtic
September	Steven Gerrard	Rangers	Alfredo Morelos	Rangers
October	Angelo Alessio	Kilmarnock	Mohamed Elyounoussi	Celtic
November	Neil Lennon	Celtic	Christian Doidge	Hibernian
December	Steven Gerrard	Rangers	Martin Boyle	Hibernian
January	Gary Holt	Livingston	Odsonne Édouard	Celtic
February	Neil Lennon	Celtic	Billy Mckay	Ross County

Broadcasting

Live Matches

The SPFL permits Sky Sports and BT Sport up to six live home matches between the broadcasters from each club - although this is only four for Rangers and Celtic. Sky Sports and BT Sport's deal allows them to broadcast 30 games each (and the play-offs for BT). The deal roughly provides £21m to SPFL per season. This is the final season of the contract; from 2020–21, Sky Sports will have exclusive rights to Scottish Premiership matches.

Highlights

Sky Sports hold the rights to Saturday night highlights - however, they do not broadcast a dedicated programme and instead merely show the goals of the Premiership matches on Sky Sports News in their Goals Express programme - which primarily is focused on goals from the English Football League. Gaelic-language channel BBC Alba has the rights to broadcast the repeat in full of 38 Saturday 3pm matches "as live" at 5.30pm. The main Premiership highlights programme is BBC Scotland's Sportscene programme, which shows in-depth highlights of all six Premiership matches every weekend. The SPFL also uploads the goals from every Premiership match onto its YouTube channel - available from 6pm on a Sunday for UK and Ireland viewers and 10pm on a Saturday for those worldwide.

External links

• Official website

Football Seasons in Scotland

Football League

Division One

Premier Division

Premier League

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