Celtic's Opening-Day Dominance Continues

The calendar says Monday. History says Celtic.

Martin O’Neill walks into another league opener with numbers that border on routine dominance: four wins from five first days in charge of Celtic, the only blemish a goalless draw with Dunfermline back in 2003-04. For most managers, opening weekends are about feeling their way into a season. For O’Neill, they’ve become a statement of intent.

This one comes with a twist of novelty. It is only the second time in Celtic’s long history that a league campaign has started on a Monday. The last time it happened, in 1921-22, they blew Raith Rovers away 4-0. More than a century later, the stage feels familiar even if the day of the week does not: champions at home, crowd expectant, the weight of precedent heavy on the visitors.

And that precedent is brutal.

Reigning Scottish champions have turned matchday one into a private procession over the past 14 seasons, winning every single time by a combined score of 43-7. The last time the title holders failed to win their opener was when Rangers were held 1-1 by Hearts in 2011-12. Since then, the first weekend has belonged to the team with the crown.

Celtic have taken that habit and hardened it into something close to a rule. On the past 14 occasions they have started a season as champions, they have won their opening league game every time. You have to go back to 2007-08, and a 0-0 draw with Kilmarnock, to find the last time they didn’t begin a title defence with three points.

Home openers tell a similar story. Celtic Park on matchday one is usually unforgiving. Celtic have won 23 of their last 24 league season openers at home, the only interruption again that same 0-0 with Kilmarnock in 2007-08. One blank in almost a quarter of a century of first days in Glasgow’s east end.

Into that storm walks Dundee.

Their own relationship with opening weekends is far less kind. They haven’t won their first match in any of their past six Scottish Premiership campaigns, drawing three and losing three since a 3-1 victory over Ross County in 2016-17. The pattern is clear: they tend to start slowly, and this is just about the harshest venue in the country for a slow starter.

The numbers away to Celtic are even more stark. Dundee have lost 23 of their last 25 away games against Celtic in all competitions, drawing the other two. Their last win here came in May 2001, under Ivano Bonetti, a different era entirely. Since then, trips to Celtic Park have brought little but damage and disappointment.

So the backdrop is set: a manager who treats opening days as a platform, a club that turns them into a ceremony, and visitors who arrive with history stacked against them.

The question now is simple. Can anyone break this script, or will Celtic’s opening-day machine just keep grinding on?