The 4 Scottish Premiership clubs which are not Celtic and Hearts we should be talking about

A quartet of top-flight teams deserve recognition for what they achieved in the past season

Monday, May 18 will go down in Scottish football history as a key date. The Scottish Premiership was terminated, 33 days after the Championship and Leagues One and Two were concluded.

Celtic were crowned champions for the ninth season running which, unsurprisingly, provoked talk of tainted titles and people googling how to spell asterisk correctly.

At the other end of the table, Hearts were banished to the Championship, like a mischievous child without any dinner. Or they were relegated. Again, depending on which team you support or your viewpoint the wording or phrasing changes.

Motherwell and Hamilton have a successful season. Picture: SNS

Understandably there have been plenty of column inches and online articles dedicated to Celtic’s success, Hearts’ bottom place finish and the ramifications.

But beyond that, there are teams whose success should be recognised:

Motherwell

Stephen Robinson steered his Steelmen to third place and a return to Europe. It is a position the Fir Park side have not reached since 2014 when Craig Reid’s entertaining late winner at Pittodrie secured second place under Stuart McCall. Since then Motherwell have survived the Premiership play-off, again in entertaining fashion, are on to their third manager post-McCall, while they have done a lot of fine work off the field, becoming debt free for the first time in 40 years with fan group Well Society no majority shareholders.

Stephen Robinson has Motherwell punching above their weight. Picture: SNS

Robinson has done an excellent job having taken over Mark McGhee, buying into what the club have been trying to do by becoming innovative and making the development of youth a real focus. It has carried on into this season where the Northern Irishman has once again tweaked his side, losing Jake Hastie to Rangers and David Turnbull to injury. Half way through the campaign influential forwards Devante Cole and James Scott departed.

It is something which is expected and planned for at Motherwell. In an interview with The Athletic, Robinson claimed the club were in the bottom three for budgets, revealing the highest paid player is on £1,600-a-week. The finances and budgets of football teams is always a murky concept but there is absolutely no doubt he has the Steelmen punching above their weight.

It is a mentality which appears to have been drilled into players and a position the club like to be in, making it uncomfortable for opponents and always standing their ground. No team recorded more bookings and only Aberdeen and Hearts fouled more. That owes to the combative nature of Robinson’s teams and something fans want to see. At the same time, only Celtic and Rangers attempted more shots and the Old Firm were the only teams to attempt more dribbles.

As he told The Athletic: “We press high and play an attractive brand but it depends on what players you’re able to recruit. We’ve been able to recruit real, raw pace.

Lyndon Dykes was one of the signings of the season. Picture: SNS

“Everything we do is focused on how we get into wide areas, how we get into the final third, how we penetrate. We work constantly with our forward players, running in behind, one-v-ones. It’s been a constant build-up over the last year and a half to create that style of play.”

It has been a gradual process and one which has succeeded.

Livingston

Two years ago, when Livingston recorded back-to-back promotions to return to the top-flight for the first time since 2006 there was an expectation that they would struggle, so much so that many pundits and fans no longer had Hamilton as the obvious candidate for relegation. They were, in this writer’s eyes, a breath of fresh air to the Premiership with their no nonsense and direct style of play, dishing out a few bloody noses. In the case of Hearts, a broken nose and then some.

Tommy Wright left St Johnstone in the top six. Picture: SNS

Concerns were raised again when it was clear they would be losing goalkeeper Liam Kelly, captain Craig Halkett and other key players such as Declan Gallagher and Shaun Byrne. But manager Gary Holt had already begun experimenting ahead of the end of the 2018/19 campaign, switching to a back four.

It was a shrewd move. Not as shrewd as the club’s recruitment, however. Jon Guthrie has been a stalwart at centre-back, Nicky Devlin a very capable operator. Matija Sarkic wasn’t a downgrade on Kelly and Robbie Crawford showed his promise. But then there is Marvin Bartley and Lyndon Dykes. Both recruited on a free, both excellent, both the ideal players for the way Livingston want to play. Both contenders for the signing of the season.

Forget about the ball being played from the back. It’s about getting it into areas where the team’s forward and midfielders can get on the ball. Areas where if they lose it they are not in danger. Only St Mirren played more long passes, but Livi were fourth in the entire league for touches in the box.

One stat perhaps stands out more than any other, they finished a combined 18 points ahead of their Lothian rivals Hearts and Hibs.

St Johnstone

Alex Gogic was totemic for Hamilton's survival. Picture: SNS

It turns out not playing games can be a bonus as Saints found with their rearranged fixture with Rangers. Only playing 29 times allowed St Johnstone to jump above Hibs into the top six on the points-per-game average. It means that in seven of the last nine Premiership seasons the club have been in the top six. A fitting way to end Tommy Wright’s tenure.

For a good chunk of the season it appeared the Saintees would be in danger of relegation. It took them until October 26 to register their first league win and October 30 to register their first league clean sheet. By then they had already been knocked out of the Betfred Cup in the group stage and lost 11-0 on aggregate to the Old Firm, including a 7-0 thumping at the hands of Celtic on the opening day.

But their season is an example of patience and trust in a manager. To begin with the team had strayed away from the stereotypical St Johnstone. Plenty of attacking options but there were concerns about the solidity of the team, especially the defence. A return to that organised, structured foundation, aided by some savvy recruitment, namely Jamie McCart, saw the team propel away from danger.

Hamilton Academical

It has now reached a point where it seems Hamilton enjoy being written off, enjoy being looked down upon, enjoy the fact that they annoy fans of other teams with their small crowds in their two stands and gazebo. It means when they survive relegation they can have the last laugh. It’s a badge of honour.

At the time of the Premiership shutdown, Accies deserved to be away from the bottom place. They have a habit of going on long runs where they don’t pick up (m)any wins and the football can, at times, be pretty turgid. But then they put together a run of results, even if it is just two or three, to steer them away from choppy waters.

This season they hit that form at the perfect time. They lost just one of their last six league fixtures, winning their final two, the huge 1-0 win at Ibrox followed up by a 1-0 victory over Kilmarnock. It was the first time they had won back to back games in the league since March 2017. That’s 728 days. In addition, it was the first time they had kept three league clean sheets in a row – having drawn 0-0 with Motherwell before the wins - in more than four years. Nearly 1,500 days!

Sometimes they can be seen as a rag-tag bunch, but Brian Rice had made the team not only harder to beat, aided by the excellent Alex Gogic in the middle of the park, but also more threatening in the final third, helped by the enigmatic talents of Mickel Miller, David Moyo, David Templeton and Marios Ogkmpoe.