A new Scottish Premiership season begins on Friday, but will anyone match Heart of Midlothian from last term and challenge Celtic and Rangers for the title?

Martin O'Neill, Derek McInnes, Wouter Vrancken and Alfred Johansson now lead last season's top-four finishers And in the relative blink of an eye, the new Scottish Premiership season is upon us with much to live up to compared to last time, an epic campaign that looked like making the impossible possible for month upon month. How Scotland, and other parts of the world, became entranced by the fairytale only for the reality of sport's essential brutality to hit them square between the eyes at Celtic Park on denouement day. If there is a non-Glasgow team capable of roughing up the big two as Heart of Midlothian did repeatedly last season then we're in for a wild ride. If this league campaign goes to the final three minutes on the final day, if the domestic football story to beat all domestic football stories is in touching distance as the campaign swings for home next spring then we'll be blessed. If. Nobody will be betting a brass farthing on history repeating itself, though. True, nobody really saw Hearts coming last time, but does lightning strike twice? Hearts are in transition under new management and a raft of new players in the post-Derek McInnes, Lawrence Shankland age. They'll take time to settle. Is there a different bolter out there? Motherwell, so easy on the eye last season, have had their guts ripped out in the summer and are also rebuilding, albeit playing with the same easy style as before.