Making predictions ahead of a new Scottish football season is a sure-fire, guaranteed way of making oneself look rather silly.

In most seasons, especially of late, we've all had a pretty good idea of which team will emerge with the Scottish Premiership trophy when it's all said and done. After that, you'd be just as well closing your eyes, hoovering a pen over the list of clubs and dropping it down indiscriminately to select where everyone else will finish. Scotland's top flight may be infamous for its duopoly but beyond that there is a lot of parity, with teams often coming from nowhere to take a European place, while other bigger, more-fancied clubs flounder in the bottom half of the table.

We've also seen throughout recent years that a team doesn't have to be all that talented to remain in the division, as Hamilton Accies proved on many occasions before their eventual demise in 2021. Sneeringly dubbed 'the cockroaches of Scottish football', they continuously found a way to survive in unlikely circumstances.

If St Johnstone are to survive this campaign then they'll surely take on the moniker. The Perth side were seconds away from the Premiership play-off final last term before ultimately securing survival with a last-day win at Motherwell. The season prior they limped to ninth place despite a necessary change of manager with club legend Callum Davidson outstaying his welcome, and the year before that they had to beat Inverness CT in the play-off to secure their status. They've gone from unlikely cup-double winners to serial escape artists, but if they were to repeat the trick this term then it would be the most impressive one to date, and I just can't see it happening.

An already weak squad lost its star goalkeeper (Dimitar Mitov), starting back three (Ryan McGowan, Liam Gordon, Andy Considine), starting left wing-back (Luke Robinson) and arguably the best centre-midfielder (Dan Phillips). 

Nine replacements have been brought in, but there are big question marks about all of them. Trinidad and Tobago defender Andre Raymond has barely played any competitive football, 18-year-old Ghanaian Aaron Essel moves away from his homeland for the first time, young South African winger Arran Cocks is already away out on loan, and 27-year-old defender Kyle Cameron has spent most of his career to date in England's National League. Even some of the more recognisable names represent significant gambles as none of Jack Sanders, Josh Rae, Makenzie Kirk nor Josh McPake have yet proven themselves at this level, while ex-Hearts striker Uche Ikpeazu has already picked up an injury.

To make matters worse, manager Craig Levein has already stated that St Johnstone will have to move some players on – Stevie May being the most likely candidate at this moment – in order to further strengthen their corps. Fans are already voicing their dissatisfaction after a dismal League Cup group-stage loss to League One Alloa Athletic, both with the quality of the squad and how Levein is asking them to play.

Even with new owners coming in and talented striker Adama Sidibeh offering some hope, this has the feeling of a cursed campaign and it may be a case where Saints need to drop out of the top division after 16 consecutive years, clear the decks and rebuild themselves back up again.
Having gifted St Johnstone a reverse-jinx to help them in their battle against the drop, I shall now go around the rest of the Premiership and offer some other predictions.

Celtic will win the title. They haven't done much to improve their team in the summer so far, but it hasn't been particularly weakened either. The same cannot be said of their Glasgow rivals a few miles west, who are in the middle of a fire sale and are unable to play at Ibrox for the foreseeable due to some emergency repair work.

Speaking of Rangers, Lawrence Shankland will not be signing for them this summer or at any point this 2024/25, but will instead see out the rest of his contract at Tynecastle. 

Hearts themselves will be pipped to third place by a resurgent Aberdeen under the management of Jimmy Thelin, a prediction I am making on the basis that I like the look of Aberdeen's signings so far, their squad last season was nowhere near as bad as they collectively appeared, and Hearts haven't finished best-of-the-rest in consecutive seasons for 20 years.

Hibs are heading for a second successive season of bottom-six football with Aberdeen replacing Dundee as the only change in the top six. 

At first, the move to promote David Gray to a permanent manager's job seemed a sensible one, despite his inexperience. After all, he knows the league, he knows the club and Hibs just need someone like that in a position of power amidst all these other voices within the building who have no prior connection to Leith. But the revelation that billionaire sponsor Bill Foley and the club hierarchy are already not seeing eye-to-eye shows that Hibs are just doomed to underachieve as long as the Gordon family's ownership continues to operate in such a hands-on manner.
Dundee will be weaker than last season. They will still keep their heads above water relatively easily in the second half of the campaign, but they will finish lower than returning rivals Dundee United. 

The Terrors come into the league as a strong Championship title-winner and have plenty of players with top-flight experience and quality. They've also made some decent new additions. Dundee, on the other hand, have lost a lot of influential loanees and are betting on Simon Murray continuing peak career form at the age of 32.

Finally, Ross County, having sold Murray, will finish below Motherwell and compete in the play-off final for the third season in succession. This time they won't be as fortunate with Partick Thistle getting revenge for the conclusion to the 2022/23 campaign by relegating them.