Scotland's two most successful clubs both needed to dig deep to claim victories in midweek Scottish Premiership fixtures, with Celtic edging past St Johnstone and Rangers seeing off St Mirren in tight contests that underlined the competitiveness of this season's top flight.
Celtic travelled to McDiarmid Park to face St Johnstone and came away with a slender win, continuing their pursuit of an unbeaten start to the 2026/27 campaign. The Glasgow side were forced to work hard against a determined home team, but ultimately found a way through to secure the three points, keeping pace at the top of the table.
Across the city, Rangers hosted St Mirren and likewise had to settle for a narrow scoreline as they extended their own positive run of form. The Ibrox club have been building momentum in recent weeks, and while the performance against St Mirren was not always fluent, the result was enough to maintain their position among the league's front-runners.
The midweek programme followed a busy weekend of Premiership action that saw both Celtic and Rangers already among the goals. Celtic had earlier beaten St Mirren, while Rangers overcame Motherwell in their respective weekend fixtures, meaning both clubs have now recorded back-to-back victories heading into the September international break.
Elsewhere in the division, there was late drama in the capital as Hibernian hosted Hearts in the season's first Edinburgh derby, a fixture that always draws significant attention regardless of league position. St Johnstone also faced Hibernian earlier in the week, adding to a congested schedule for the Perth club, who found themselves up against both halves of the Old Firm and Hibs within a matter of days.
Dundee United and Falkirk also met over the weekend, as did Aberdeen and Kilmarnock, rounding out a full slate of Premiership fixtures. Hearts, meanwhile, were involved in two matches in quick succession, taking on Dundee after their derby meeting with Hibernian.
With both Celtic and Rangers now stringing together consistent results, attention will turn to how each side fares once league action resumes after the international break. Neither Glasgow club produced the kind of dominant, free-flowing displays that have characterised some of their recent Premiership campaigns, but the ability to grind out narrow wins away from home and under pressure will be viewed as a promising sign by both sets of supporters.
For the chasing pack, the message from this round of fixtures is that points against the traditional 'Old Firm' clubs remain hard to come by, even when matches are closely contested. St Johnstone and St Mirren will both feel they created enough to take something from their meetings with Celtic and Rangers respectively, but were unable to find the finishing touch required to trouble the established order at the top of Scottish football.
Based on reporting from BBC Sport (Sportscene).