Shankland, Valakari & form teams of 2025 in focus

There are just three games to go in the Scottish Premiership and we still have a few burning issues to be settled.

It’s win or bust time for St Johnstone at the bottom and Kilmarnock can be rid of any play-off worries if they see off Dundee at Rugby Park.

St Mirren aren’t just making up the numbers in the top six and will be within striking distance of the last European place if they can upset Dundee United at Tannadice.

Barry Ferguson is still seeking a first home win as Rangers manager.

When Celtic beat Hibs 3-0 in Glasgow on 7 December, the length of the Premiership table separated the sides.

Since then no team in the division has collected more points than Hibs as they moved from last to third, having lost just once in 19 league outings and winning 13 of those.

That remarkable sequence includes a 2-1 victory over the champions at Easter Road when David Gray’s side turned in a full throttle first-half display against opponents who had suffered midweek Champions League disappointment at Bayern Munich.

Celtic have since had their revenge in the Scottish Cup and knocked Hibs out of the League Cup, too, making it four wins from the five encounters this season.

These two may be the form teams of 2025 but Celtic are undefeated in 21 home games against Hibs in all competitions, winning 17, since a 2-1 upset in January 2010.

They haven’t lost two successive league games to the men from Leith in one season since 1950-51.

With the title wrapped up and the last Old Firm game out of the way, Brendan Rodgers plans to rest a few players with the Scottish Cup final in mind.

That might embolden the visitors, who posed very little threat in that cup defeat in March.

Of course, Gray might think it will be easier to hold out against a team missing a few front line stars but a cautious approach backfired at Pittodrie recently to end a long unbeaten run.

Motherwell are safe from trouble and Hearts are as good as too, so here’s hoping the teams serve up better fare than they did at Fir Park last month.

Both teams needed a win that day to make the top six but the pressure told in a drab, goalless draw.

Lawrence Shankland was on the visitors’ bench that afternoon and came nearest to breaking the deadlock with a late effort cleared off the line.

The Scotland striker netted in the following Scottish Cup semi-final defeat by Aberdeen and banged in two more in the win at Ross County last weekend to effectively snuff out any play-off concerns.

Caretaker manager Liam Fox needed the points and he wasn’t messing about, immediately reinstating Shankland as the starting centre forward.

The 29-year-old, who has spent most of 2025 in a deeper role, will be a free agent in a few weeks, so he has picked a good time to remind us of his goalscoring talent.

However, his season tally of seven is a huge drop-off from the 31 and 28 in his previous campaigns at Tynecastle.

Will there be a clamour for Shankland’s signature over the summer on the strength of those past exploits or could Hearts tempt their captain to stay on?

If St Johnstone are beaten at home by Ross County, they will drop out of the top tier for the first time since 2002.

A home victory would pull the Saints three points behind the visitors with two games remaining but they have been in ‘must-win’ territory for a while and have lost three in a row in the Premiership since a shock success against Celtic.

County are in even worse shape, though, picking up nothing from their previous six matches and failing to score in four of those.

Thanks to the vagaries of the split, this will be a third home game for St Johnstone against County this season and they have won the other two, with Simo Valakari looking on for the first as he waited for paperwork to clear on his appointment.

The Perth side are unbeaten in their past six meetings with the Staggies but have been forced to play with a patched up defence of late and looked extremely vulnerable in the 2-0 defeat to Kilmarnock at McDiarmid Park last time.

A draw is no use to St Johnstone at this stage, so Valakari has to go for it.