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By CALUM CROWE AND JOHN MCGARRY Published: 04: 00 AEDT, 24 January 2026 | Updated: 04: 00 AEDT, 24 January 2026 View comments With 16 games to go and only six points separating the top three, the next few months promise to be utterly intriguing in the Premiership.   It had looked to be a two-way fight between Celtic and Hearts but Rangers under Danny Rohl have slowly fought their way back into contention.   Here, Daily Mail Sport’s top writers Calum Crowe and John Mc Garry take a look at the contenders . .. and who they believe will come out on top. HEARTS John Mc Garry: Any objective assessment of Hearts’ superb run to this point would identify several things as being the mark of would-be champions. Derek Mc Innes’ side have won more games than any other side in the top division. They’ve scored more goals than any of the chasing pack. When adversity has come, they’ve dealt with it well. Going down to 10 men in successive league games against Dundee and St Mirren was no impediment to them winning. They’ve already beaten both halves of the Old Firm home and away this season. The last time that happened was 1959-60 when the club were crowned champions of Scotland. Rangers are gaining momentum under young boss Danny Rohl at just the right time Hearts are having a wonderful season with Derek Mc Innes at the helm, but do they have the strength to go all the way? Martin O'Neill has breathed fresh life into Celtic at a time when they have been beset by problems on and off the park They have a strong defensive structure, strength and guile in midfield and talents of the ilk of Claudio Braga, Lawrence Shankland and Alexandros Kyziridis in the final third. Or at least they did. And that’s where the doubts are creeping in ahead of Sunday’s powder keg clash with Celtic. Cammy Devlin, the side’s best performer this season, is out for up to eight weeks with injury and now Shankland has joined him on the sidelines for a similar period. Beni Baningime is also suspended for the Celtic match. A deal for Rogers Mato is being pushed through, but the Uganda international will need time to get up to speed. Shankland is the league’s top scorer with 11 goals. The captain’s loss is a truly savage blow. If they can still see off Celtic to open up a nine-point gap, the champions will be miles back with 15 games to go. But a victory for Martin O’Neill’s side will strengthen the view that the wind is starting to go out of the maroon sails at the worst possible time. Calum Crowe: You can’t overstate the importance of the injuries to Devlin and Shankland. Devlin has been the best midfielder in the country this season and will be in the running for the PFA Scotland Player of the Year, while Shankland is the league’s top scorer and the club captain. To be without the pair of them for the next six to eight weeks is an absolute hammer blow. Injuries are part and parcel of any season, however. Celtic and Rangers have both had key players missing this season, so Hearts just need to get on with it as best they can.   They still have good players and match-winners in the likes of Braga and Kyziridis. If they can somehow grind out a victory over Celtic at Tynecastle, they would open up a nine-point gap on the reigning champions with only 15 games left to play. That would be an unbelievable position. Hearts will have to cope without influential skipper Lawrence Shankland at crucial point of season MIdfield dynamo Cammy Devlin is also missing through injury just when team need him most For me, that would pretty much kill off Celtic. Hearts have already claimed four wins over the Old Firm clubs this season, beating them both home and away, so there is clearly no fear factor at play. Derek Mc Innes has instilled a belief in them that they can go all the way. Even beyond the injuries to Devlin and Shankland, there is still an extremely settled look to their team. They should have enough in the tank to pick up results and ensure they are up there challenging come the end of the season. RANGERS John Mc Garry: At the start of the season, anyone suggesting Rangers would be in contention to win the title in late January would have been advised to urgently seek medical help. As Russell Martin presided over one disaster after another, the history books told us it was statistically the Ibrox club’s worst start to a league campaign since 1978-79. Even with no wins arriving in the opening five games, though, the situation was never entirely hopeless. The club’s new American owners had made errors of judgment in appointing Martin and sporting director Kevin Thelwell. They recognised this before it was too late and took the necessary action. Danny Rohl has taken a common-sense approach from the moment he walked in the door.   He’s played a system which has suited those players at his disposal rather than imposing his preferred formation. The displays haven’t always been spectacular, but they have yielded positive results which, in turn, have brought a degree of confidence to the group. . Rangers are the form team in the country in the period since the German became head coach. Rangers are hitting their stride at perfect time as win at Celtic Park in January showed The arrival of, from left, Tochi Chukwuani, Andreas Skov Olsen and Tuur Rommens could work wonders for Ibrox side Only time will tell if Andreas Skov Olsen, Tochi Chukwuani and Tuur Rommens will improve the squad, but all the available evidence suggests they will. Rohl hopes to add more new faces this month. Rangers have work to do to rein Hearts in, but they have growing momentum and sufficient time to do so. Calum Crowe: Any notion of Rangers even challenging for the league would have been laughed out of town when Danny Rohl took charge in late October. The Ibrox side had won only one of their opening eight league matches. They were 13 points behind Hearts at one stage and eight behind Celtic. However, Rohl quickly found a way of making them competitive and, while the football hasn’t been scintillating, there’s a pragmatism to Rangers now and an ability to dig out results. Of all three contenders, they are the team who look like they are getting progressively better and stronger as the season wears on. I’m not sure you can say that about Hearts - and you certainly can’t say it about Celtic. Rangers have also acted swiftly and decisively in the transfer market to sign Skov Olsen, Chukwuani and Rommens. The expectation is that at least two more players will follow before the transfer window closes next week. Rangers also have home advantage in the favour when it comes to matches between the title contenders, with Celtic and Hearts both due at Ibrox next time they face Rohl’s side. Danny Rohl has found a way to make Rangers competitive again since becoming boss If you were to make the case against Rangers winning the league, you could perhaps take the view that Rohl has elevated an average squad to a level where they are playing above themselves. Maybe they will be found out eventually. The lack of a proven goalscorer as their main striker certainly doesn’t help. Will they score enough goals to catch Hearts and go on and win the league? They don’t have much margin for error, but the weight of positivity around Ibrox just now is impossible to deny. CELTIC John Mc Garry:  Only someone who’s been living on a desert island for the past year could possibly be surprised by the fact Celtic’s grip on the title is weakening. Throughout 2024, the club suffered just two defeats in all competitions - to Hearts and Borussia Dortmund. By the midway point of 2025, they’d been beaten in seven matches and lost the Scottish Cup final to Aberdeen. On the back of a dismal January window, the alarm bells were shrieking as this season dawned, yet those at the helm did little to stop the slide. With the squad again weaker after the summer business, the side ended the calendar year with no fewer than 17 defeats. Another loss to Rangers at the outset of 2026 signalled the end of the Wilfried Nancy farce and the second return of O’Neill. As when he initially stepped into Brendan Rodgers’ shoes, O’Neill has restored a sense of order to proceedings, yet he does not possess a magic wand. Striker Tomas Cvancara has joined Celtic but they need more players of pedigree if they are to have a chance of winning title Benjamin Nygren kept Celtic in the hunt with a crucial goal at Falkirk Stadium last week Tomas Cvancara is in the building after moving on loan from Borussia Monchengladbach. Many other players of pedigree will have to join the Czech before February 2 if Celtic are to go on the kind of run they need. Even when winning games, Celtic have rarely convinced. At this stage a year ago, they’d won only two matches in the Premiership by a single goal. They’ve done that seven times already this season. When you ride your luck so often, you eventually come a cropper. While there’s undoubtedly been bad luck along the way, with injuries to key players including Cameron Carter-Vickers, Jota and Alistair Johnston, most problems have been of their own making. Calum Crowe: Given that everyone knew Celtic were screaming out for some new signings heading into the January window, I’ve found their lack of urgency absolutely astonishing. Even by their standards, this has been a shambles. Right now, Martin O’Neill is essentially the manager, the director of football, the head of recruitment and the chief scout - all at once. For a club of Celtic’s stature to have no proper recruitment structure in place behind the scenes is an embarrassment. It speaks to a wider culture of complacency and arrogance behind the scenes. An analogue club living in a digital age. If O’Neill can pull it back from here and lead the club to a league title win, it would rank among his finest achievements. It would have to. In saying all that, Celtic do still have some good players in the building. Callum Mc Gregor, Kieran Tierney and James Forrest have all been over the course and distance before. They know what it takes to win the league, but have they ever been under as serious pressure in a title race before? The season that Rangers won the league in 2020-21, Celtic completely imploded. How many times over the past 15 years have Mc Gregor and Co actually had a proper challenge going all the way to the wire? Very, very rarely. Martin O'Neill and Shaun Maloney are doing their very best with a limited squad at this moment Even when O’Neill returned as manager, I still made them favourites. But that was before the full scale of their recruitment shambles became clear. In all honesty, I’m not even sure O’Neill realised things were this bad behind the scenes. Whatever chance they have of winning the league hinges on avoiding defeat at Tynecastle. If they lose, I think they are done for. FINAL VERDICT John Mc Garry: Hearts clearly would not have wanted to go out of the Scottish Cup to Falkirk last weekend, but if there was a crumb of comfort it was the fact they are now solely focused on the remainder of the league campaign. The next five matches see Mc Innes’ side facing Celtic, Dundee United, St Mirren, Hibs and Rangers. If they can come through that period with their six-point lead intact after injuries to key players, then they’ll start to count down the games. A defeat on Sunday is unthinkable for Celtic. It would leave O’Neill’s side needing to be near perfect between now and May.   There’s nothing in this season to date to suggest they would be capable of going on such a prolonged winning run. Even with the legendary Northern Irishman back at the club and new recruits finally arriving, there remains a toxic atmosphere around the club. That’s not conducive to success. Like his Ibrox paymasters, Rohl has learned on the job and quickly identified what’s required. If a better striker option comes in the door before the window closes, he’ll be quietly confident that those stuffy wins can become a bit more comfortable and that an impressive run of results will go on. Once 13 points behind the leaders, Rangers are now just six back and will expect to have made up ground on at least one of the challengers by the time the weekend is out. If they can get their noses in front when Hearts visit Ibrox on February 15, it will be extremely hard to see them looking back. Calum Crowe: The fact we are even discussing the prospect of a three-way battle going all the way to the wire is brilliant in itself. Scottish football has been crying out for this for far too long. Celtic and Rangers only have themselves to blame for allowing Hearts to have such a brilliant chance of winning the title.   If Rohl's Rangers can beat Hearts later this month, it will be hard to see them looking back That’s not intended to downplay how good Hearts have been. But you need to go back generations to find the last time they enjoyed this kind of dominance, with four wins from four against the Old Firm clubs so far this season. They have already beaten them both home and away, with two of those wins coming against Russell Martin’s Rangers and Wilfried Nancy’s Celtic.   Two absolute dud managers who both lost at home to Hearts. Unless Celtic go to Tynecastle and win, and then sign another two or three players with proven ability, I just can’t see how they win the league from here. I don’t expect Hearts to completely implode, even with the injuries to Devlin and Shankland, but I do fear they could now start dropping points. For me, it’s Rangers who are now the team to beat. On and off the pitch, they have such a weight of positivity and momentum behind them.   I also expect Skov Olsen to be a terrific signing. He’s a goal threat, he’s creative, and has a wand of a left foot. Rangers have developed a consistency and are steadily improving as the season goes on. I expect the league trophy will end up at Ibrox come the end of the season.

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