THAT TIME of year has arrived when discussions take place about how difficult life is about to become for Gordon Strachan and Celtic against a revitalised Rangers. This has become an annual ritual which is made to look dubious about a third of the way into the season and becomes laughable at the point when Celtic wrap up the championship and Rangers discover yet another of their managers isn't going to be around for the long haul.

When a manager leaves Rangers his portrait goes alongside those of his predecessors on a wall of the Blue Room at Ibrox. A club employee puts up the picture but really it is Strachan who has been doing the hanging. The Celtic boss is going into his third season at Parkhead and every one of them has begun with a different man in charge across the city in Govan. He saw off Alex McLeish by 18 points in his first campaign and was 17 ahead of Rangers when Paul Le Guen said adieu in the middle of last season. Strachan has won the league twice at a canter.

One question stands above all others as the SPL is about to begin its 10th season: is Walter Smith the man who will give Strachan a proper run for his money at last?

Rangers have put their faith in the notion that familiarity breeds content. Good old Walter is back, reminding everyone of an avalanche of silverware and those heady years when a Celtic fiver really did mean a Rangers tenner in the transfer market.

Since he returned to the club in January after a nine-and-a-half year absence Smith has been Smith: applying commonsense principles and management to shake Rangers into form and consistency. The club knows what to expect from its patriarchal manager. Few are more seasoned and knowledgeable about what it takes to handle the rigours of Scottish domestic football. By signing Carlos Cuellar, Lee McCulloch, Jean-Claude Darcheville and Kirk Broadfoot he has brought in players who are tall and/or physically robust. One way or another opponents should know they have been in a game after 90 minutes against Smith's Rangers.

Even big boys cry, though, and the close season has been demoralising at Ibrox. None of the players they have signed were on any supporter's wish list. They have missed out on Julien Faubert, Scott Brown and - so far - Steven Naismith in the transfer market and landed McCulloch only after paying three times more than an opening bid which made them look cheap.

Both Cuellar and McCulloch cost more than anyone Le Guen bought but chairman Sir David Murray gives the impression of an owner who won't be signing any major cheques while he is on the lookout for someone to take the club off his hands. There have been sporadic demonstrations against Murray in each of the past two seasons and opposition to him will fester as long as Celtic stay ahead. There is a sense of treading water at Rangers and if they win nothing they will have gone three seasons without a trophy for the first time since .

Rangers' lack of serious financial resources has been impossible to disguise and it has been galling for them to lose out to Celtic on Brown, Scott McDonald and perhaps still Naismith. Strachan is not the type to be interested by Glasgow pointscoring and would not bid for a player on the basis that Rangers wanted him first, but because they are both priced out of the Premiership market both Old Firm clubs are looking at the same targets more often these days and he is in a position to outbid Smith for anyone.

With more than a month left in the transfer window Rangers need cover at right-back and a right-sided midfielder. Above that, the main problem looks to be an over-reliance on Kris Boyd's goalscoring and if McCulloch and Darcheville are to relieve that pressure on him they will have to score more frequently than they have in the past.

The lack of goals around the Rangers team is the weakness which leaves Celtic placed to win three consecutive titles for the first time since Jock Stein completed nine-in-a-row in the 1970s. Celtic have numerous goalscorers among their forwards and midfielders. And they need them, given that they are weak at right-back, one-paced in central defence and unsure of who should play alongside Stephen McManus.

There is still time for major comings and goings but at the moment Celtic have added significantly and lost only Neil Lennon, whose influence was fading. The introduction of Brown will make the champions more dynamic and entertaining than they were last season while the arrivals of Massimo Donati and Scott McDonald should freshen the team too.

Strachan remains an unlovable figure to many in the Parkhead stands and although he tries to cocoon himself from what others think it is not difficult to envisage him calling it a day next summer if the critics among the Celtic supporters do not lose their enthusiasm for finding fault.

A league and cup double and four creditable performances against Manchester United and AC Milan on a journey to the last 16 of the Champions League was pretty good going, but not enough to please those who carped that the championship was not won with style. In fact it was all wrapped up so early - one bookmaker paid out on Celtic being champions in November - that from March onwards Strachan's players operated with a collective numbness and trifling matters - should Derek Riordan play more? - were scrutinised and blown up into major topics of discussion.

The second half of Celtic's league season was competitive football in name only and they switched off. That undermined what we saw between January and May as an authentic form guide, including Smith's two Old Firm victories, but Rangers still could be heartened by their transformation from the irrelevance they had been under Le Guen.

Overall it made for an unorthodox league "race", won by the pace-setter who sprinted away before taking a lazy saunter towards the finishing line. Celtic's points total of 84 was the lowest of any SPL champions for eight years and 19 fewer than Martin O'Neill's team accumulated while winning in 2002. If there was encouragement for the league as a whole beyond the claustrophobic Glasgow scene it came in the fact only 19 points separated the champions and the team which finished third. In 2002 that gap had been 45. Some precious unpredictability has returned to the top flight.

No team other than Celtic or Rangers will be champions for the foreseeable future of course, but those two can lose to Aberdeen, Hearts or Hibs among others in one-off fixtures and that was barely the case five years ago. BBC Scotland certainly feel there is vitality in the SPL again given that they have muscled in on the television deals in order to gain the rights to show a midweek highlights package, while the Clydesdale Bank have ploughed in £8 million to take over as the title sponsors for the next four years.

That figure is exactly what Hearts reportedly turned down from Sunderland for Craig Gordon. It is perfectly feasible that Gordon will still leave before August 31 and if he does it will be another backward step for a club which promised so much two seasons ago but slipped back among the also-rans last season. They have the strongest squad outwith the Old Firm, with Laryea Kingston one of the players who could light up the scene, and third place looks likely for them again. Vladimir Romanov has been quiet of late but that is the problem: the owner tends to be at his most vociferous and meddlesome when things are going well.

Aberdeen have the Uefa Cup to occupy their thoughts and although they will not admit it they may prioritise that and the domestic cups above finishing third for the second consecutive season. The next four or five months will determine when Jimmy Calderwood signs a new contract or leaves whenhis current one finishes at the end of the season.

Will John Collins still be at Hibs then? He has made some intriguing signings but lost more talent this summer - Brown, Chris Killen, Ivan Sproule, Michael Stewart - than any of his counterparts. And who can be sure whether we have heard the last of Collins's supposed unpopularity with his players?

Dundee United can expect solid progress under Craig Levein, possibly nudging them above Kilmarnock if Naismith does leave, while Mark McGhee is a fresh and welcome addition to the picture at Motherwell.

He will have to share his Fir Park stadium with Gretna, the league's ugly ducklings. Everyone used to enjoy Gretna shooting up the lower leagues; now many regard them as nouveau riche gatecrashers forcing the rest to play ghostly fixtures in a near empty, rented stadium. They face an almighty task to compete with Falkirk, Caledonian Thistle, Motherwell and especially St Mirren. But only once in SPL history have the new arrivals gone straight back down and Gretna have specialised in minor miracles.

In one sense having hardly any fans will help them. It minimises the risk of falling foul of the new SPL rules against "unacceptable conduct" - be it sectarianism, racism or other offensive behaviour - from supporters. Any club found guilty may be docked points or expelled from the division.

Now then, which of the Old Firm clubs will be booted out first?