St Johnstone vs Hearts Prediction: Both teams could find the back of the net here

On the first Saturday of the new season of the Scottish Premiership, Hearts will play St. Johnstone at McDiarmid Park in Perth. This match will take place on the opening weekend. The hosts open the season on the heels of a humiliating elimination from the League Cup, and they face a challenging beginning in the league.

St Johnstone's last game was against League One Stirling Albion at home, and the home team had nothing to play for other than pride, but they played poorly and lost 4-0. The team captained by Steven MacLean concluded the section tied on points with Stenhousemuir of the fourth tier, who had also defeated them previously in the group round. It comes as a surprise that St. Johnstone has gotten off to such a poor start considering how strongly they concluded the previous season. To avoid relegation, they earned 10 points from their five games in the Relegation Group. However, as a result of the club's performance early in the season, they are one of the favorites to be demoted; hence, MacLean will want a lift in morale as quickly as possible and an immediate response to those humiliating losses.

Hearts' early-season concerns may be centered on reaching the group stages in Europe once again since they have been granted a favorable start to the season. Hearts reached the group stages in Europe during the previous season. They will not face either of the Glasgow giants until game week nine, which will take place in the middle of October. At that point, they will be well into what may be their second straight campaign in the Europa League group stage. After suffering six consecutive losses toward the end of the regular season, the only team in the Championship Group to overcome Hearts was Celtic. In the end, they were able to secure another Uefa Europa Conference League spot courtesy of a contentious 1-1 draw with rivals Hibernian and a controversial 2-2 tie at Ibrox thanks to an equalizer scored in the final minute of regulation. Hearts will be determined to get it that far again, despite being overpowered by Fiorentina and Istanbul Basaksehir. They will face either the Crusaders or Rosenborg later in the month in qualifying, and the outcome of that match will determine who they play.

St Johnstone possible starting lineup:

Mitov; Brown, Considine, Gordon, Gallacher; Kucheryavyi, Phillips, Ballantyne, Ferguson; Jephcott, May

Hearts possible starting lineup:

Clark; Atkinson, Kent, Rowles, Kingsley; Nieuwenhof, Haring, Grant; Oda, Shankland, Forrest

In the previous campaign, Hearts prevailed in all three matches between these teams, tallying nine goals, and they come into this matchup as the clear favorites. After suffering humiliation at the hands of opponents from a lower league in the League Cup, St. Johnstone needs to respond, but they might have a hard time doing so against Steven Naismith's players.