Scottish Premiership preview – Aberdeen v Celtic, Naderi & Bartley in focus

One game – and an important one at that – has already been played in this full round of midweek Scottish Premiership fixtures, but Wednesday is where the majority of the action is found.

The big question is whether Rangers – who are home to Kilmarnock – and Celtic, who are away to Aberdeen, can capitalise on Heart of Midlothian’s slip up at St Mirren.

Motherwell will hope to close the gap on the Old Firm in the event they drop points with their trip to Dundee – subject to a positive pitch inspection.

Elsewhere, Marvin Bartley takes charge of Livingston for the first time and Hibernian continue life without Kieron Bowie against Dundee United.

A battle of the interim managers.

So much has changed for both clubs since the Scottish Cup final that it’s almost hard to believe that was just eight months ago.

Both sides have new men in charge – in Celtic’s case they have appointed and rejected an additional boss in that time too of course – and lots of new players.

So there will be a very different look on and off the pitch compared to the showpiece game at Hampden Park last May.

Aberdeen are still yet to find someone to replace Jimmy Thelin so Peter Leven will lead them again and while he is highly regarded, the results since he stepped in following Thelin’s exit have been miserable.

Kilmarnock’s first win in 17 league games at the weekend was the latest low point and Leven only has the 6-2 win over bottom side Livingston to show for his five games in charge.

Nevertheless, Celtic usually find it tough at Pittodrie and Martin O’Neill knows that better than most.

Tomas Cvancara and Julian Araujo of the January arrivals are likely to start and it will be interesting to see if O’Neill has been sufficiently impressed in training by Junior Adamu, Benjamin Arthur and Joel Mvuka to throw any of them straight in.

Defender Auston Trusty is back after suspension too, so suddenly O’Neill has options despite the absences of key men Cameron Carter-Vickers, Jota and Alistair Johnston.

Taking a bit of a gamble here, because the interesting thing is whether Ryan Naderi actually features at all against Kilmarnock.

He has been signed from Hansa Rostock despite Rangers having number nines in Youssef Chermiti and Bojan Miovski at the club – but neither have scored regularly.

That was highlighted in the costly 0-0 draw with Hibernian last weekend – so does Danny Rohl throw his countryman straight in against Kilmarnock?

Chermiti was reticent to shoot when in space against Hibs and infuriated Rangers fans by hanging around the outside of the box in the final minutes of the game with his side desperate for a winner.

Or, does Rohl look at Rangers’ paltry xG of 0.55 in that game and instead decide he needs to address the creativity in the side?

There is an argument to suggest Rangers need on-loan winger Andreas Skov Olsen to come to the party just as much as their new centre forward Naderi.

The Wolfsburg winger has looked pretty modest so far and Rohl is going to need at least one of him or Naderi to fire if they are to fight to the end in the title race.

It might be strange to say that a manager who has left with his side rooted to the bottom of the table is going to be a hard act to follow, but that is the case with David Martindale.

Livingston were relegated two seasons ago in fairly dispiriting fashion but Martindale stayed on and got Livi – who work with relatively small resources – promoted at the first time of asking.

He emphasised lessons had been learned from the 2023-24 season, but Livi are adrift at the foot of the Scottish Premiership table midway through their return to the top flight.

Martindale has moved aside to become sporting director and one of his coaches, Marvin Bartley, has taken over as manager.

Bartley was in charge of Queen of the South for 16 months and did a decent job before leaving in May 2024 after the Dumfries side finished seventh in Scottish League 1.

He returned to West Lothian as a coach earlier this season and is now in the hotseat.

Even if he just managed to create a relegation battle would be an achievement for Bartley, because at the moment, it just doesn’t exist.

His more pressing task is to get the West Lothian club back up again next season. That work probably starts now for the eloquent Bartley, who is taking his first top-flight role with his predecessor ‘upstairs’.