6 under the radar SPFL games to watch this weekend as 2023/24 season kicks off with a bang

The SPFL is back and we're ready for the cocktail of drama, intrigue, and daft patter that only Scottish football can conjure up.

There are pre-match storylines to savour up and down and country and we're all-but-guaranteed plenty of fun and games, from newly promoted sides and promotion hopefuls to the perpetually stuck clubs hoping that this may be their season to catapult themselves up the divisions and out from the middle of the pack.

It all kicks off tonight in mere hours as Arbroath host Dundee United in the first SPFL league game of the season in the Scottish Championship. Just two years ago Dick Campbell's side went into the penultimate game of the season against Kilmarnock with a chance to get themselves into the top-flight. It wasn't to be then, but who knows what that season will bring?

Here are your fixtures to watch this weekend:

Kicking it off with the weekend's first kick-off. Jim Goodwin's side are a bit of an unknown quantity still this season, with their League Cup exit already cause for concern on Tayside. Their fans will accept no less than an immediate return to the top flight but their squad remains in a state of flux with Charlie Mulgrew's departure announced just hours before their Championship kick-off.

Arbroath will be a solid litmus test for them with Dick Campbell's side now well acquainted with reaching the play-offs and avoiding the relegation play-offs last season. A home win tonight for the Red Lichties and it will set off even more alarm bells at Tannadice.

On the surface, it may seem like a relatively 'normal' Scottish Premiership fixture but there's a lot riding on each club this season. The burning question for the visitors is how will they cope without their talisman Kevin van Veen