Celtic's Opening-Day Dominance Continues Against Dundee
The calendar says Monday. History says Celtic.
Martin O’Neill walks into another league opener at Celtic with a record that borders on ruthless: four wins from five on day one, the only blemish a goalless draw with Dunfermline back in 2003-04. When the Premiership curtain lifts, his teams tend not to fumble with the ropes.
There is something unusual about this one, though. Celtic almost never start a league season on a Monday. This is just the second time in the club’s history they have done so. The last time it happened, in 1921-22, they brushed Raith Rovers aside 4-0. A quirk of the fixture list, but the pattern remains familiar – when Celtic open, they open hard.
Champions in Scotland don’t tend to ease their way into a title defence. Reigning title-holders have won on matchday one in each of the last 14 seasons, racking up an aggregate score of 43-7 since Rangers were held 1-1 by Hearts in 2011-12. The pressure that comes with the crown has produced something close to a ritual: the champions step out, and they set the tone.
Celtic have embraced that ritual more than anyone. On every one of the last 14 occasions they have started a campaign as champions, they have won their opening league match. You have to go back to 2007-08, and a 0-0 draw with Kilmarnock, to find the last time they failed to turn the first day into three points.
The numbers at Celtic Park are even more unforgiving. Across their past 24 home league openers, Celtic have won 23. The solitary slip? Again, that same 0-0 with Kilmarnock in 2007-08. Otherwise, the first day in Glasgow’s east end tends to feel like a coronation rather than a contest.
Dundee’s Opening-Day Struggles
Dundee walk straight into that storm.
Their own recent history on opening day could hardly be more different. They have not won the first match of a Scottish Premiership campaign in any of their last six attempts. Three draws, three defeats, and a nagging sense that the season always seems to start with a stumble. The last time they opened with a win in the top flight was a 3-1 victory over Ross County in 2016-17.
The away form at this particular venue only deepens the challenge. Dundee have lost 23 of their past 25 away games at Celtic in all competitions. The other two? Draws. You have to wind the clock all the way back to May 2001, under Ivano Bonetti, to find their last victory in this fixture in Glasgow – a 2-0 win that now feels like it belongs to another era.
So the stage is set in stark terms. On one side, a Celtic team that treats opening day at home as a statement of intent. On the other, a Dundee side trying to break a cycle that has lasted more than two decades in this stadium and almost a decade in season openers.
History leans heavily towards green and white. The question is whether Dundee can tear up the script, or whether Celtic’s Monday night will simply become the latest chapter in a story they know by heart.
