Kris Boyd has predicted Celtic and Rangers will end up battling it out for the Scottish Premiership title this season.
Hearts have been the early pacesetters in the league and top the table with 19 points, three more than third-placed Celtic and five more than Rangers in sixth.
With Hibernian in second and Kilmarnock and Livingston also flying high, former Ibrox striker Boyd has appreciated the novelty of the early months of the campaign but expects the Glasgow giants to finish in the top two.
“Hearts have been brilliant so far this season, that defeat to Rangers aside,” Boyd wrote in his Scottish Sun column. “Their rise to the top of the table was refreshing to say the least. But they were never going to maintain it.
“When injuries and suspensions hit that’s when all teams like Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen for that matter will fall by the wayside. They simply don’t have the squads to cope.
“I expect Rangers to battle it out with Celtic and if Hearts can finish ahead of their city rivals and the Dons then it will have been a successful campaign for them.”
OPINION
Boyd knows what it takes to win a league title – he has twice been crowned a Scottish champion – and it’s the clubs with the strongest squads who almost always triumph. Despite Hearts’ fairytale start, Hibs punching above their weight under the canny Neil Lennon and the impressive starts from Livi and his own Kilmarnock team, the striker is not wrong to expect an all-Glasgow tussle for the biggest domestic trophy. Celtic have hoovered up every trophy going since handing Brendan Rodgers a £40,000-a-week contract and, although his side are nowhere near as dominant or fluent as they once were, they are undoubtedly still the team to beat. Rangers have made huge strides under Steven Gerrard, particularly during their against-the-odds European run, but the demolition of Hearts before the international break suggested a rapid climb up the league table is imminent.