Scottish Premier League 2006–07

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

The league champions, Celtic and runners-up, Rangers, qualified for the UEFA Champions League. 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.

[edit] Promotion and relegation from 2005–06

Promoted from First Division to Premier League

• St. Mirren

Relegated from Premier League to First Division

• Livingston

[edit] Events

• On April 22, 2007 Celtic beat Kilmarnock 2–1 to win the title for the second season running with a last-minute winner from Shunsuke Nakamura.

• On May 12, 2007 Dunfermline Athletic were relegated to the First Division after a 2–1 defeat at Inverness and St. Mirren came back from 2–0 down to win 3–2 at Motherwell.

• On May 20, 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.

[edit] Final table

Source:^{[citation needed]}
Rules for classification: 1st points; 2nd goal difference; 3rd goals scored.

• Dunfermline gained UEFA Cup place as fellow Scottish Cup finalists Celtic had already qualified for Europe via Champions League
• No Scottish side competed in the Intertoto Cup in the 2007-08 season after Inverness CT withdrew their application
• After 33 games (at which point each team had played each other three times) the table split into a top six and bottom six, and teams played one further game against each side in their half. Teams stayed in their half of the league regardless of their points total.
  P = Position; Pld = Matches played; W = Matches won; D = Matches drawn; L = Matches lost; GF = Goals for; GA = Goals against; GD = Goal difference; Pts = Points;
  (C) = Champion; (R) = Relegated; (P) = Promoted; (Q) = Qualified to respective phase of tournament; (O) = Play-off winner; (A) = Advances to a further round.
  

[edit] Goals

[edit] 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
JV 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

[edit] Hat-tricks

Scorer	For	Against	Date
Nakamura, ShunsukeShunsuke Nakamura	Celtic	Dundee United	14 October 2006
Stokes, AnthonyAnthony Stokes	Falkirk	Dundee United	28 October 2006
Stokes, AnthonyAnthony Stokes	Falkirk	Dunfermline Athletic	4 November 2006
Gravesen, ThomasThomas Gravesen	Celtic	St. Mirren	12 November 2006
Stokes, AnthonyAnthony Stokes	Falkirk	Inverness CT	30 December 2006
Vennegoor of Hesselink, JanJan Vennegoor of Hesselink	Celtic	St. Mirren	20 January 2007
Boyd, KrisKris Boyd	Rangers	Kilmarnock	11 February 2007
Boyd, KrisKris Boyd	Rangers	Aberdeen	17 March 2007
Robson, BarryBarry Robson	Dundee United	Heart of Midlothian	17 March 2007

[edit] 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:

[edit] 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)

[edit] See also

• 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 2006-07