Celtic’s Opening-Day Dominance Continues Against Dundee
The calendar says Monday. History says Celtic.
Martin O’Neill walks into another league opener knowing this terrain as well as anyone who has ever sat in the Celtic dugout. Four wins from five first-day league games as manager, with only a single goalless draw against Dunfermline in 2003-04 interrupting a perfect record. His teams don’t ease into seasons. They kick the door down.
This one carries a touch of novelty. It is only the second time in the club’s history that Celtic have started a league campaign on a Monday. The last time it happened, back in 1921-22, Raith Rovers were swept aside 4-0. A century on, the expectation is the same: champions setting the tone, not waiting for it.
Recent history across Scottish football backs that up. Reigning champions have turned matchday one into a ritual of authority. Across the past 14 seasons, the title holders have won every single opening game, by an aggregate score of 43-7, ever since Rangers were held 1-1 by Hearts in 2011-12. The first whistle of a new campaign has become a stage for the champions to flex.
Celtic, when they start as champions, rarely miss their cue. They have won their opener in each of the last 14 seasons in which they’ve gone in as title holders, a run stretching back to a 0-0 draw with Kilmarnock in 2007-08. That stalemate is the outlier; everything since has been about making a statement.
The venue only sharpens that edge. Celtic Park on matchday one has been close to automatic. Celtic have won 23 of their last 24 home league openers, the only blemish that same 0-0 with Kilmarnock in 2007-08. New seasons arrive, squads evolve, managers change. The pattern at home on day one barely flickers.
For Dundee, the numbers paint a very different picture.
They have not won an opening match in any of their last six Scottish Premiership campaigns. Three draws, three defeats, no fast starts since a 3-1 victory over Ross County in 2016-17. While others stride out of the blocks, Dundee tend to stumble or stall.
The record at Celtic only deepens the challenge. Dundee have lost 23 of their last 25 away games against Celtic in all competitions, drawing the other two, and have not won there since a 2-0 victory in May 2001 under Ivano Bonetti. That result belongs to another era entirely, recalled more as trivia than precedent.
So the scene is familiar. Celtic, champions again, opening at home with history at their back and statistics that read like a warning. Dundee, burdened by years of slow starts and a brutal away record in Glasgow, walk into a ground where visiting sides almost always leave with the same story.
The numbers say we’ve seen this film before. The question, as another season cracks into life, is whether anyone can change the ending.
