2006–07 Scottish Premier League

The 2006–07 Scottish Premier League season was the ninth season of the Scottish Premier League. It began on 29 July 2006.

Scottish Premier League

Season	2006–07
Dates	29 July 2006 – 20 May 2007
Champions	Celtic 5th Premier League title 41st Scottish title
Relegated	Dunfermline
Champions League	Celtic Rangers
UEFA Cup	Aberdeen Dunfermline
Intertoto Cup	None
Matches played	228
Goals scored	560 (2.46 per match)
Top goalscorer	Kris Boyd (20)
Biggest home win	Motherwell 5–0 Kilmarnock (30 September)
Biggest away win	Motherwell 1–6 Hibernian (18 November)
← 2005–06 2007–08 →

The league champions, Celtic and runners-up, Rangers, qualified for the UEFA Champions League on the return of Walter Smith as manager following a brief and disastrous reign by Frenchman Paul Le Guen. The team finishing third, Aberdeen qualified for the UEFA Cup, as did the Scottish Cup finalists Dunfermline Athletic. However, being the bottom-placed team in the SPL, Dunfermline were also relegated to the First Division.

Teams

Promotion and relegation from 2005–06

Promoted from First Division to Premier League

• St Mirren

Relegated from Premier League to First Division

• Livingston

Stadia and locations

Aberdeen	Celtic	Dundee United	Dunfermline Athletic
Pittodrie Stadium	Celtic Park	Tannadice Park	East End Park
Capacity: 20,866[1]	Capacity: 60,411[2]	Capacity: 14,223[3]	Capacity: 12,509[4]
Falkirk	Aberdeen Dundee United Dunfermline Athletic Falkirk Hearts Hibernian Inverness Caledonian Thistle Kilmarnock Rangers St Mirren Celtic Motherwell Location of teams in 2006–07 Scottish Premier League		Heart of Midlothian
Falkirk Stadium			Tynecastle Park
Capacity: 7,937[5]			Capacity: 17,420[6]
Hibernian			Inverness Caledonian Thistle
Easter Road			Caledonian Stadium
Capacity: 16,531[7]			Capacity: 7,500[8]
Kilmarnock	Motherwell	Rangers	St Mirren
Rugby Park	Fir Park	Ibrox Stadium	Love Street
Capacity: 17,889[9]	Capacity: 13,677[10]	Capacity: 50,817[11]	Capacity: 10,800[12]

Personnel

Team	Manager
Aberdeen	Jimmy Calderwood
Celtic	Gordon Strachan
Dundee United	Craig Levein
Dunfermline Athletic	Stephen Kenny
Falkirk	John Hughes
Heart of Midlothian	Anatoliy Korobochka
Hibernian	John Collins
Inverness Caledonian Thistle	Charlie Christie
Kilmarnock	Jim Jefferies
Motherwell	Maurice Malpas
Rangers	Walter Smith
St Mirren	Gus MacPherson

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Date of vacancy	Manner of departure	Position in table	Incoming manager	Date of appointment
Rangers	Alex McLeish	8 May 2006	Sacked	Pre-season	Paul Le Guen	9 May 2006
Motherwell	Terry Butcher	17 May 2006	Signed by Sydney FC		Maurice Malpas	17 May 2006
Hibernian	Tony Mowbray	13 October 2006	Signed by West Bromwich Albion	7th	John Collins	31 October 2006
Dunfermline Athletic	Jim Leishman	26 October 2006	Became Director of Football	11th	Stephen Kenny	10 November 2006
Dundee United	Craig Brewster	29 October 2006	Sacked	12th	Craig Levein	30 October 2006
Rangers	Paul Le Guen	4 January 2007	Mutual consent	2nd	Walter Smith	10 January 2007
Heart of Midlothian	Valdas Ivanauskas	20 March 2007	Mutual consent	4th	Anatoliy Korobochka	20 March 2007 (caretaker) 30 July 2007 (permanent)

Events

Main article: 2006–07 in Scottish football

• On 22 April 2007 Celtic beat Kilmarnock 2–1 to win the title for the second season running thanks to goals from Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Shunsuke Nakamura who scored a free-kick in the dying second of the match to clinch the title for Celtic
• On 12 May 2007 Dunfermline Athletic were relegated to the First Division after a 2–1 defeat at Inverness CT and St Mirren came back from 2–0 down to win 3–2 at Motherwell.
• On 20 May 2007 Aberdeen beat Rangers 2–0 at home in their final game of the season to qualify for the UEFA Cup.
• For the second consecutive season, the top scorer was Kris Boyd of Rangers, with 20 goals.

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation[a]
1	Celtic (C)	38	26	6	6	65	34	+31	84	Qualification for the Champions League third qualifying round
2	Rangers	38	21	9	8	61	32	+29	72	Qualification for the Champions League second qualifying round
3	Aberdeen	38	19	8	11	55	38	+17	65	Qualification for the UEFA Cup first round
4	Heart of Midlothian	38	17	10	11	47	35	+12	61
5	Kilmarnock	38	16	7	15	47	54	−7	55
6	Hibernian	38	13	10	15	56	46	+10	49
7	Falkirk	38	15	5	18	49	47	+2	50
8	Inverness Caledonian Thistle	38	11	13	14	42	48	−6	46
9	Dundee United	38	10	12	16	40	59	−19	42
10	Motherwell	38	10	8	20	41	61	−20	38
11	St Mirren	38	8	12	18	31	51	−20	36
12	Dunfermline Athletic (R)	38	8	8	22	26	55	−29	32	Relegation to the Scottish First Division and qualification for UEFA Cup second qualifying round[b]

Source: Scottish Professional Football League
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Goals scored
(C) Champions; (R) Relegated
Notes:

1. Teams played each other three times (33 matches), before the league split into two groups (the top six and the bottom six) for the last five matches.
2. As Celtic, the Scottish Cup winners, qualified for the Champions League via their league position, the place in the UEFA Cup was passed to Dunfermline Athletic, the cup runner-up.

Results

Matches 1–22

During matches 1–22 each team played every other team twice (home and away).

Home \ Away	ABE	CEL	DUN	DNF	FAL	HOM	HIB	INV	KIL	MOT	RAN	STM
Aberdeen		0–1	3–1	1–0	2–1	1–3	2–1	1–1	3–1	2–1	1–2	2–0
Celtic	1–0		2–2	1–0	1–0	2–1	2–1	3–0	4–1	2–1	2–0	2–0
Dundee United	3–1	1–4		0–0	1–2	0–1	0–3	3–1	1–0	1–1	2–1	1–0
Dunfermline Athletic	0–3	1–2	2–1		0–3	1–2	0–4	0–0	3–2	0–2	1–1	2–1
Falkirk	0–2	0–1	5–1	1–0		1–1	2–1	3–1	1–2	0–1	1–0	1–1
Heart of Midlothian	0–1	2–1	4–0	1–1	0–0		3–1	4–1	0–2	4–1	0–1	0–1
Hibernian	1–1	2–2	2–1	2–0	0–1	2–2		2–0	2–2	3–1	2–1	5–1
Inverness Caledonian Thistle	1–1	1–1	0–0	1–0	3–2	0–0	0–0		3–4	0–1	2–1	1–2
Kilmarnock	1–0	1–2	0–0	5–1	2–1	0–0	2–1	1–1		1–2	2–2	1–1
Motherwell	0–2	1–1	2–3	2–1	4–2	0–1	1–6	1–4	5–0		1–2	0–0
Rangers	1–0	1–1	2–2	2–0	4–0	2–0	3–0	0–1	3–0	1–1		1–1
St Mirren	1–1	1–3	1–3	0–0	1–0	2–2	1–0	1–1	0–1	2–0	2–3

Source: ^{[citation needed]}
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Matches 23–33

During matches 23–33 each team played every other team once (either at home or away).

Home \ Away	ABE	CEL	DUN	DNF	FAL	HOM	HIB	INV	KIL	MOT	RAN	STM
Aberdeen		1–2	2–4	3–0		1–0		1–1
Celtic				2–1			2–1		4–0	2–0	0–1	3–1
Dundee United		0–3		0–0	1–5		0–0			1–1
Dunfermline Athletic						0–1	1–0		1–1		0–1	0–0
Falkirk	1–2	1–0		1–0					0–2	1–2		2–1
Heart of Midlothian		1–4	0–4		1–0			1–0	1–0			1–1
Hibernian	0–0				2–0	0–1				2–0	0–2
Inverness Caledonian Thistle		1–2	1–0	1–3	1–1		3–0					2–1
Kilmarnock	1–2		1–0				0–2	3–2			1–3
Motherwell	0–2			2–0		0–2		1–0	0–1		0–1
Rangers	3–0		5–0		2–1	0–0		1–1
St Mirren	0–2		0–1				1–1		0–2	0–0	0–1

Source: ^{[citation needed]}
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Matches 34–38

During matches 34–38 each team played every other team in their half of the table once.

Top six Home \ Away ABE CEL HOM HIB KIL RAN Aberdeen 2–2 3–0 2–0 Celtic 2–1 1–3 Heart of Midlothian 1–1 2–0 Hibernian 2–1 0–1 3–3 Kilmarnock 1–3 1–0 Rangers 2–0 2–1 0–1 Source: [citation needed] Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Bottom six Home \ Away DUN DNF FAL INV MOT STM Dundee United 1–1 0–0 0–2 Dunfermline Athletic 1–0 0–3 4–1 Falkirk 2–0 1–0 0–2 Inverness Caledonian Thistle 2–1 2–0 Motherwell 3–3 2–3 St Mirren 0–1 0–1 Source: [citation needed] Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Goals

Top scorers

Scorer	Team	Appearances	Goals	Average
Kris Boyd	Rangers	32	20	0.63
Scott McDonald	Motherwell	32	15	0.47
Steven Naismith	Kilmarnock	37	15	0.41
Anthony Stokes	Falkirk	16	14	0.86
Chris Killen	Hibernian	18	13	0.72
Darren Mackie	Aberdeen	36	13	0.36
Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink	Celtic	21	13	0.62
Colin Nish	Kilmarnock	33	12	0.36
Charlie Adam	Rangers	32	11	0.34
Barry Robson	Dundee United	29	11	0.38
John Sutton	St Mirren	33	11	0.33
Craig Dargo	Inverness CT	27	10	0.37
Noel Hunt	Dundee United	28	10	0.36
Steve Lovell	Aberdeen	27	9	0.33
Shunsuke Nakamura	Celtic	37	9	0.24
Andrius Velicka	Heart of Midlothian	27	8	0.30

Hat-tricks

Main article: List of Scottish Premier League hat-tricks

Scorer	For	Against	Date
Shunsuke Nakamura	Celtic	Dundee United	14 October 2006
Anthony Stokes	Falkirk	Dundee United	28 October 2006
Anthony Stokes	Falkirk	Dunfermline Athletic	4 November 2006
Thomas Gravesen	Celtic	St Mirren	12 November 2006
Anthony Stokes	Falkirk	Inverness CT	30 December 2006
Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink	Celtic	St Mirren	20 January 2007
Kris Boyd	Rangers	Kilmarnock	11 February 2007
Kris Boyd	Rangers	Aberdeen	17 March 2007
Barry Robson	Dundee United	Heart of Midlothian	17 March 2007

Attendances

Overall 3.7 million spectators attended an average per match of just over 8,090. The average and highest attendances for SPL clubs during the 2006/07 season are shown below:

Club	Average	Highest
Celtic	57,928	59,659
Rangers	49,955	50,488
Hearts	16,937	17,369
Hibernian	14,587	16,747
Aberdeen	12,475	20,045
Dundee United	7,147	12,329
Kilmarnock	6,807	13,506
Dunfermline Athletic	6,106	8,561
Motherwell	5,877	11,745
St Mirren	5,609	10,251
Falkirk	5,387	7,245
Inverness CT	4,879	7,522

Source: SPL official website

Monthly awards

Main article: Scottish Premier League monthly awards

Month	Manager	Player	Young Player
August	Jim Jefferies (Kilmarnock)	Russell Latapy (Falkirk)	Aiden McGeady (Celtic)
September	Gordon Strachan (Celtic)	Allan McGregor (Rangers)	Aiden McGeady (Celtic)
October	Charlie Christie (Inverness CT)	Lee Naylor (Celtic)	Anthony Stokes (Falkirk)
November	Craig Levein (Dundee United)	Russell Anderson (Aberdeen)	Anthony Stokes (Falkirk)
December	John Hughes (Falkirk)	Artur Boruc (Celtic)	Darren Barr (Falkirk)
January	Gordon Strachan (Celtic)	Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink (Celtic)	Christophe Berra (Hearts)
February	Maurice Malpas (Motherwell)	Shunsuke Nakamura (Celtic)	Lewis Stevenson (Hibernian)
March	Craig Levein (Dundee United)	Alan Hutton (Rangers)	Steven Naismith (Kilmarnock)
April	Stephen Kenny (Dunfermline Athletic)	Neil Lennon (Celtic)	Mark Reynolds (Motherwell)

See also

• 2006–07 Celtic F.C. season
• 2006–07 Dundee United F.C. season
• 2006–07 Hibernian F.C. season
• 2006–07 Kilmarnock F.C. season
• 2006–07 Rangers F.C. season