Scottish Premiership: Does much change in last eight games?

The pattern of recent seasons suggests that Celtic would not have been caught in the final few games

Hearts have argued furiously that they could have avoided relegation if they had been able to play their final eight Scottish Premiership matches. Do they have a point?

And was Celtic's 13-point lead at the summit ever really in danger of being whittled away by Rangers?

BBC Scotland takes a look at the past five seasons of Scottish football to see just how much tends to change in the final eight games of a campaign.

How often does the bottom team escape?

In short, not very...

In 2015, St Mirren failed to make a dent in their survival chances over the last eight games and were automatically relegated. And over the next three seasons, Dundee United, Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Ross County all went down after being bottom at the 30-game mark.

In fact, the only club that did manage to buck the trend in the past five years was St Mirren, who leapfrogged Dundee into 11th last season before winning the relegation play-off against Dundee United.

Could Hearts have made up the six-point gap between themselves and Ross County, or the four points between themselves and Hamilton Academical in the final eight games? Absolutely, but it rarely happens.

Change of play-off picks?

We have already established that St Mirren are the only side to have moved off bottom in the past few seasons, and their ascension to 11th last term is the only time the team in the relegation play-off place has changed, too.

Motherwell, Kilmarnock, Hamilton and Partick Thistle all finished 11th after being in that position at the 30-game mark in the past few campaigns.

The only team that narrowed the gap on the team above was Thistle two years ago, but the Glasgow club still finished in the play-off place on goal difference before losing the Premiership play-off to Livingston.

Tight at the top? Not really...

Celtic have been peerless in their run to nine Premiership titles in a row, so it's no surprise that they would have been just fine if the previous five campaigns were ended after 30 games.

Each season, the Parkhead side were top at that stage, with their closest challengers Aberdeen in season 2015-16. Derek McInnes' men were four points adrift four years ago, but had also played a game more.

While this term's points tally was only beaten once by this stage in the last five years - by Brendan Rodgers' Invincibles of 2016-17 - even Celtic's lowest total of 68 points would be enough to win this season's league after 30 games.

In terms of the battle for best of the rest, on only two occasions since 2014-15 has there been any difference between positions now and at the end of a full campaign.

In 2017-18, Rangers were ahead of Aberdeen by two points - albeit having played 31 games compared to their rivals' 30 - only for McInnes' team to finish second.

The following year, Rangers remained second, but Kilmarnock managed to claw back a point deficit on Aberdeen to finish third on goal difference.