Scottish Premiership is back: Hearts' hurt, Celtic's gamble and Rangers' reboot

Somehow, the Scottish Premiership is already back. It feels like only yesterday that Boston's traffic cones were turned into street art and Billy Gilmour was doing his best Major League Baseball pitcher impression. The noise of a World Cup campaign that ended in disappointment for Scotland has barely faded, but there is no time to dwell. The league that always seems to deliver returns on Friday. Hearts came within nine minutes of ending four decades of Old Firm dominance last season. They led Celtic at Parkhead until Daizen Maeda sparked bedlam in the 87th minute, and Celtic's third goal deep in stoppage time sent Hearts players straight for the bus with tears on their faces. That team has been broken up since. Derek McInnes left for Rangers, taking captain Lawrence Shankland and midfielder Cammy Devlin with him. Belgian boss Wouter Vrancken has taken over at Tynecastle and has already felt the rough edge of the job, with a 6-0 defeat to Sturm Graz ending their Champions League hopes. Former striker Ryan Stevenson worries about the speed of the rebuild. "Hearts just look as if it's just a new squad flung in together, with the manager too, trying to find their way," he said. "If they don't play well, I would give it to mid-September, and it would not be nice." Celtic, meanwhile, remain a mystery. They won the double last term but supporters are restless, and the club's board has felt the pressure. Two signings have arrived for around £15m combined, but Daizen Maeda has exited to Ipswich Town. O'Neill wants more quality through the door and is keen to get deals done quickly. The names linked include Real Oviedo and Egypt winger Haissem Hassan and Paderborn midfielder Mika Baur. McInnes is now trying to do at Rangers what he nearly did at Hearts. A friendly win over St Etienne and a draw with West Ham have offered some hope, but Rangers were wildly inconsistent last season, collapsing after the split. James Tavernier, Jack Butland and Oliver Antman have all left. Olwethu Makhanya is the eighth new arrival, Shankland is the new captain, and young Serb Vanja Dragojevic looks like a smart pickup. Still, there is one question that will not go away: will VAR continue to dominate the conversation? Scotland is far from alone in that debate.