The Warm Up podcast<\/a>, Sutton played down any controversy over the SPFL’s calls: “I think it’s mostly as we all expected really, Celtic playing Hearts and Rangers at home. I don’t know any club that would really have a gripe.<\/p>\n“There are murmurings about Hearts but I don’t get that. Hearts knew they had to play Celtic away, if they go there and do that they will stand a fair chance of winning the league.”<\/p>\n
Naismith took a different view: “On the split, I do think it has it’s advantages and disadvantages.<\/p>\n
“Timing of the games, who you are playing and when, but i think for the three teams there is not somebody who is blowing teams away, especially when they take the lead as we have seen in recent fixtures.<\/p>\n
“I think there will be twists and turns in it. I think Celtic having two at home out of the first three, Rangers and Hearts having two away out of the first three and when the kick-offs are will play a part.”<\/p>\n
Smirking Boyd quickly cut in: “Wow, Sutty [Sutton], he sounds as if he has still got that Hearts head on. Moaning and complaining. Come on mate, everyone still has the same teams to play.”<\/p>\n
The Hoops’ legend chimed in: “This is the thing, tell us the alternatives then Steven? All these people that are whinging about the fixtures, tell us the perfect scenario where everybody would be happy.<\/p>\n
“Teams playing after other teams, that happens, it comes with the territory. If the Hearts players, or the Rangers players, or the Celtic players have a gripe in their heads after these fixtures have come out then that is going to be the problem.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_JS394229050.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Celtic’s Auston Trusty fouls Hearts’ Pierre Landry Kabore<\/p>\n
“How would you be if you were a Hearts player or a Rangers player and these fixtures came out? I don’t think anyone really cares.”<\/p>\n
Naismith stood by his point – noting the difference in times of games across: “I don’t think when the fixtures came out anyone will be sitting with a big gripe, but I think it will have an impact.<\/p>\n
“As we have seen in recent weeks, the team playing first – if you get the win – it puts so much pressure on the teams behind you.<\/p>\n
“And the home advantage for all three teams is big, because going away from home none of the three have looked as comfortable or assured as in recent years.<\/p>\n
“I think it will play a part. I don’t think it’s in terms of ‘we have got to play this team away and this team at home’ – it’s the timings of the games. It does add pressure.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scottish title race is set to go all the way this term with just three points separating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2817,18666,63797,218,9531,18734,2714,8058,101,77677,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-519750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-celtic-fc","9":"tag-chris-sutton","10":"tag-derek-mcinnes","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-hearts-fc","13":"tag-kris-boyd","14":"tag-rangers-fc","15":"tag-scottish-premiership","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-steven-naismith","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Kris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_Screenshot-2026-04-08-at-124913.png\")
<\/p>\n