With every team having now faced one another in the Scottish Premiership, BBC Sport Scotland assesses the key things we have learned so far.
Hearts were one of the major stories of European football last season, coming within minutes of becoming the first non-Old Firm side to win the league since 1985. Wouter Vrancken's new-look team have made a strong start, sitting third, eight points behind Celtic and four behind Rangers despite a big summer rebuild and the Belgian implementing a new style he has described as "organised chaos". Only Celtic have scored more goals, and Hearts are formidable at Tynecastle, where they are unbeaten in the league since April 2025, a run of 26 games.
Wednesday's 2-2 draw with Rangers should have been a victory for Hearts, but their injury-ravaged squad was exposed late on. Those injuries, while juggling European football, plus an unconvincing away record including a 7-1 defeat at Celtic Park, mean Hearts may struggle to keep pace with the Old Firm. Celtic supporters remain unconvinced by their team, yet they are on course to reach over 90 points this season, having won the title with 82 last season, the lowest tally since 2017-18.
Rangers and Celtic also dominate key performance metrics, including expected goals for and against, shots on target per game and chances created. They are the only sides conceding fewer than one goal per game on average. Given their financial advantages, and with Rangers not playing in Europe this season, they should be well rested and focused on domestic duty.
Kilmarnock sit bottom of the table but are by no means cut adrift, level on points with Hibernian and only one behind Motherwell. Yet they are the bookmakers' favourites for automatic relegation. The main reason is the goals against column: Neil Mc Cann's side have conceded 26 goals, the most at this stage since Dundee in 2018-19, who went down. Kilmarnock are also scoring too few goals to compensate, and if they do not stop conceding at this rate, they will have to score three every week to win games. That is not sustainable.
Source: BBC Sport Football · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing