Celtic Champions League bonus sets coefficient ball rolling but Premership clubs face toughest test yet

The return of European competition also brings one of Scottish football's favourite recent topics to the fore - the coefficient. It's been a satisfying few years watching Scotland climb up UEFA's rankings, a rise that resulted in last season's Premiership champions gaining automatic Champions League qualification.

Title winners Celtic will go straight into the group stage and their reward for getting there is four coefficient points, which sets the ball rolling on another campaign of trying to climb the ladder. Dundee United's superb Europa Conference League qualifying win over AZ Alkmaar on Thursday night added a further point to the early season total.

But there's also been missed opportunities with Motherwell crashing out to Sligo Rovers and Rangers losing their Champions League third round qualifying first leg to Union Saint-Gilloise, although there's still time for the Ibrox side to turn the tie around. Hearts, meanwhile, have yet to kick a ball and will face either Linfield or Zurich in their Europa League play off tie. So, where does this start us off for the season?

Celtic's four and Dundee United's one means five coefficient points gained so far. However, in rankings terms we must consider UEFA's methodology. Points gained by clubs are divided by the amount of teams a nation has in UEFA competition before being added to the overall ranking. With five sides competing at the start of the season, this means those five points are divided by five, starting Scotland off with a single point so far.

The nation has risen to eighth place in the rankings, with a decent 3.6 point gap to our nearest challengers Austria. It means Scotland is unlikely to slip too dramatically any time soon, but moving further up will prove a