2014–15 Scottish Premiership

Scottish Premiership
Season	2014–15
Dates	9 August 2014 – 31 May 2015
Champions	Celtic; 2nd Premiership title; 46th Scottish title
Relegated	St Mirren
Champions League	Celtic
Europa League	Aberdeen; Inverness CT; St Johnstone
Matches played	228
Goals scored	587 (2.57 per match)
Top goalscorer	Adam Rooney (18)
Biggest home win	Celtic 6–1 Dundee United; (16 August 2014); Hamilton 5–0 Motherwell; (1 January 2015); Partick Thistle 5–0 Hamilton; (21 January 2015); Celtic 5–0 Dundee; (1 May 2015)
Biggest away win	Ross County 0–5 Celtic; (18 October 2014)
Highest scoring	Dundee United 6–2 Dundee; (1 January 2015)
Longest winning run	8 games; Aberdeen; Celtic
Longest unbeaten run	12 games; Aberdeen
Longest winless run	11 games; Ross County
Longest losing run	7 games; Ross County
Highest attendance	55,638; Celtic 5–0 Inverness CT; (24 May 2015)
Lowest attendance	1,544; Hamilton Academical 2-2 Ross County; (14 March 2015)
Average attendance	8,806 (1,377)
	← 2013–14 2015–16 → All statistics correct as of 23 August 2017.

The 2014–15 Scottish Premiership was the second season of the Scottish Premiership, the highest division of Scottish football. The season began on 9 August 2014^[2] and ended on the 31 May 2015. Celtic were the defending champions.

Twelve teams contested the league: Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee, Dundee United, Hamilton Academical, Inverness CT, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Partick Thistle, Ross County, St Johnstone and St Mirren. Due to the relegation of Edinburgh-based teams Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian in 2014, this season marked the first time in football history in which a capital city had no representatives in the top league.

On 2 May, Celtic clinched their fourth title in a row after Aberdeen lost 1–0 away at Dundee United, leaving Celtic 11 points clear with three games to play.^[3]^[4]

Teams

Dundee were promoted from the Scottish Championship. Heart of Midlothian were relegated from the Scottish Premiership.

Hibernian finished in the play-off position in the Scottish Premiership. They lost to Hamilton Academical who took the final place in the second edition of the competition, a result which left the Scottish capital Edinburgh without a club in the top flight of Scottish football for the 2014–15 season.

Stadiums by capacity and locations

Aberdeen	Celtic	Dundee	Dundee United
Pittodrie Stadium, Aberdeen	Celtic Park, Glasgow	Dens Park, Dundee	Tannadice Park, Dundee
Capacity: 20,897^[5]	Capacity: 60,355^[6]	Capacity: 11,506^[7]	Capacity: 14,229^[8]

Hamilton Academical	Aberdeen Dundee Utd Dundee Inverness Caledonian Thistle Kilmarnock Ross County St. Johnstone St Mirren Celtic Hamilton Motherwell Partick Thistle class=notpageimage\| Location of teams in 2014–15 Scottish Premiership		Inverness Caledonian Thistle
New Douglas Park, Hamilton			Caledonian Stadium, Inverness
Capacity: 6,078^[9]			Capacity: 7,800^[10]

Kilmarnock			Motherwell
Rugby Park, Kilmarnock			Fir Park, Motherwell
Capacity: 18,128^[11]			Capacity: 13,677^[12]

Partick Thistle	Ross County	St Johnstone	St Mirren
Firhill Stadium, Glasgow	Victoria Park, Dingwall	McDiarmid Park, Perth	St Mirren Park, Paisley
Capacity: 10,102^[13]	Capacity: 6,541^[14]	Capacity: 10,696^[15]	Capacity: 8,023^[16]

Personnel and kits

Team	Manager	Captain	Kit manufacturer	Shirt sponsor
Aberdeen	Derek McInnes	Russell Anderson	Adidas	Saltire Energy
Celtic	Ronny Deila	Scott Brown	Nike	Magners
Dundee	Paul Hartley	Kevin Thomson	Puma	Hangar Records
Dundee United	Jackie McNamara	Seán Dillon	Nike	Calor
Hamilton Academical	Martin Canning	Martin Canning	1874 Accies, Nike	M&H Logistics (H), Life Skills Centres (A)
Inverness CT	John Hughes	Richie Foran	Erreà	Subway
Kilmarnock	Gary Locke	Manuel Pascali	Erreà	QTS
Motherwell	Ian Baraclough	Keith Lasley	Macron	Cash Converters
Partick Thistle	Alan Archibald	Sean Welsh	Joma	macb
Ross County	Jim McIntyre	Richard Brittain	Carbrini	Stanley CRC Evans Offshore
St Johnstone	Tommy Wright	Dave Mackay	Joma	GS Brown Construction
St Mirren	Gary Teale	Steven Thompson	Carbrini	JD Sports

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Position in table	Incoming manager	Date of appointment
St Mirren	Danny Lennon	End of contract	12 May 2014^[17]	Pre-season	Tommy Craig	13 May 2014^[18]
Celtic	Neil Lennon	Resigned	22 May 2014^[19]	Pre-season	Ronny Deila	6 June 2014^[20]
Ross County	Derek Adams	Sacked	28 August 2014^[21]	12th	Jim McIntyre	9 September 2014^[22]
Motherwell	Stuart McCall	Resigned	2 November 2014^[23]	11th	Ian Baraclough	13 December 2014^[24]
St Mirren	Tommy Craig	Sacked	9 December 2014^[25]	11th	Gary Teale	29 January 2015
Hamilton Academical	Alex Neil	Signed by Norwich City	9 January 2015^[26]	3rd	Martin Canning	23 January 2015^[27]
Kilmarnock	Allan Johnston	Resigned	6 February 2015^[28]	8th	Gary Locke	6 February 2015 (interim)

Tournament format and regulations

Basic

In the initial phase of the season, the 12 teams played a round-robin tournament whereby each team played each one of the other teams three times. After 33 games, the league split into two sections of six teams, with each team playing each other in that section. The league attempts to balance the fixture list so that teams in the same section play each other twice at home and twice away, but sometimes this is impossible. A total of 228 matches were played, with 38 matches played by each team.

Promotion and relegation

The team that finished 12th (St Mirren) was relegated to the Championship, while the champion of that league (Heart of Midlothian) was promoted to the Premiership for the 2015–16 season. The team that finished 11th in the Premiership (Motherwell) played the winner of the Championship playoffs (Rangers) in two playoff games, with the winner (Motherwell) securing a Premiership spot for the 2015–16 season.

League table

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Celtic (C)	38	29	5	4	84	17	+67	92	Qualification for the Champions League second qualifying round
2	Aberdeen	38	23	6	9	57	33	+24	75	Qualification for the Europa League first qualifying round
3	Inverness Caledonian Thistle	38	19	8	11	52	42	+10	65	Qualification for the Europa League second qualifying round^[a]
4	St Johnstone	38	16	9	13	34	34	0	57	Qualification for the Europa League first qualifying round
5	Dundee United	38	17	5	16	58	56	+2	56
6	Dundee^[b]	38	11	12	15	46	57	−11	45

7	Hamilton Academical	38	15	8	15	50	53	−3	53
8	Partick Thistle	38	12	10	16	48	44	+4	46
9	Ross County	38	12	8	18	46	63	−17	44
10	Kilmarnock	38	11	8	19	44	59	−15	41
11	Motherwell (O)	38	10	6	22	38	63	−25	36	Qualification for the Premiership play-off final
12	St Mirren (R)	38	9	3	26	30	66	−36	30	Relegation to the Championship

Source: SPFL
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored
(C) Champions; (O) Play-off winners; (R) Relegated
Notes:

^ Inverness Caledonian Thistle qualified for the second qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League by winning the 2014–15 Scottish Cup.
^ Teams in the bottom six at the time of the split (33 games) cannot pass teams in the top six

Results

Matches 1–22

Teams played each other twice, once at home, once away.

Home \ Away	ABE	CEL	DND	DUN	HAM	INV	KIL	MOT	PAR	ROS	STJ	STM
Aberdeen		1–2	3–3	0–3	3–0	3–2	1–0	1–0	2–0	3–0	2–0	2–2
Celtic	2–1		2–1	6–1	0–1	1–0	2–0	1–1	1–0	0–0	0–1	4–1
Dundee	2–3	1–1		1–4	2–0	1–2	1–1	4–1	1–1	1–1	1–1	1–3
Dundee United	0–2	2–1	6–2		2–2	1–1	3–1	1–0	1–0	2–1	2–0	3–0
Hamilton Academical	3–0	0–2	2–1	2–3		0–2	0–0	5–0	3–3	4–0	1–0	3–0
Inverness Caledonian Thistle	0–1	1–0	0–0	1–0	4–2		2–0	3–1	0–4	1–1	2–1	1–0
Kilmarnock	0–2	0–2	1–3	2–0	1–0	1–2		2–0	3–0	0–3	0–1	2–1
Motherwell	0–2	0–1	1–3	1–0	0–4	0–2	1–1		1–0	2–2	0–1	1–0
Partick Thistle	0–1	0–3	1–1	2–2	1–2	3–1	1–1	3–1		4–0	0–0	1–2
Ross County	0–1	0–5	2–1	2–3	0–1	1–3	1–2	1–2	1–0		1–2	1–2
St Johnstone	1–0	0–3	0–1	2–1	0–1	1–0	1–2	2–1	2–0	2–1		1–2
St Mirren	0–2	1–2	0–1	0–3	0–2	0–1	1–2	0–1	0–1	2–2	0–1

Source: Scottish Premiership
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Matches 23–33

Teams played every other team once (either at home or away).

Home \ Away	ABE	CEL	DND	DUN	HAM	INV	KIL	MOT	PAR	ROS	STJ	STM
Aberdeen				1–0		1–0		2–1	0–0	4–0		3–0
Celtic	4–0			3–0	4–0		4–1	4–0	2–0
Dundee	1–1	1–2		3–1	1–1		1–0		1–0
Dundee United					1–0			3–1	0–2	1–2	0–2
Hamilton Academical	0–3					0–2	0–0			2–2	1–1
Inverness Caledonian Thistle		1–1	1–1	2–1			3–3			1–1	2–0
Kilmarnock	1–2			3–2				1–2	2–2			1–0
Motherwell			0–1		4–0	2–1					1–1	5–0
Partick Thistle					5–0	1–0		2–0		1–3	3–0	0–1
Ross County		0–1	1–0				2–1	3–2			1–0
St Johnstone	1–1	1–2	1–0				0–0					2–0
St Mirren		0–2	1–2	1–1	1–0	1–2				0–3

Source: Scottish Premiership
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Matches 34–38

After 33 matches, the league split into two sections of six teams each, with teams playing every other team in their section once (either at home or away). The exact matches were determined upon the league table at the time of the split.

Top six

Home \ Away	ABE	CEL	DND	DUN	INV	STJ
Aberdeen		0–1				0–1
Celtic			5–0		5–0
Dundee	1–1				0–1	0–2
Dundee United	1–0	0–3	3–0
Inverness Caledonian Thistle	1–2			3–0
St Johnstone		0–0		1–1	1–1

Source: BBC Sport
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Bottom six

Home \ Away	HAM	KIL	MOT	PAR	ROS	STM
Hamilton Academical			2–0	1–1		1–0
Kilmarnock	2–3				1–2
Motherwell		3–1		0–0	1–1
Partick Thistle		1–4				3–0
Ross County	2–1			1–2		1–2
St Mirren		4–1	2–1

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

Top scorers

As of 24 May 2015^[29]^[30]

Rank	Player	Club	Goals
1	Adam Rooney	Aberdeen	18
2	Leigh Griffiths	Celtic	14
2	Nadir Çiftçi	Dundee United	14
4	Greg Stewart	Dundee	13
5	Anthony Andreu	Hamilton Academical	12
5	John Sutton	Motherwell	12
7	Ali Crawford	Hamilton Academical	11
8	Billy McKay	Inverness Caledonian Thistle	10
	Liam Boyce	Ross County	10
	Kris Commons	Celtic	10