St. Johnstone vs Kilmarnock prediction 02.08.2026 | Premiership

St Johnstone suffered relegation from the Premiership in the 2024/25 season after 16 consecutive years in the Scottish top flight. However, they managed to return the following season instantly in a pretty dominant fashion, leaving second-placed Partick Thistle 11 points behind. For this season, their goal is only to survive.

In the League Cup, they were pretty disappointing, failing to advance to the 1/8 Finals despite facing mediocre opponents at best.

During the offseason, they improved the squad, adding several interesting players. However, to be fair, they lost their top goalscorer from last season, Josh McPake. The 24-year-old winger left to join Hearts. Logan Chalmers and Unax Alvarez are brought in as replacements, and it will be interesting to see whether they are capable of replacing him. 

Kilmarnock's results have constantly declined over the past few years. Last year, they were close to being relegated, but after winning the last four games of the season, they managed to survive. This season, they will most likely be in a similar position, and their primary goal is to avoid the relegation battle. 

During the offseason, we believe they got significantly worse as several of their players from the starting eleven left the club. We highly doubt the ones who arrived are capable of replacing those who left. 

Nevertheless, they did pretty well in the League Cup, but we have to acknowledge they had an easy schedule and still struggled to score against those teams. It will be interesting to see whether those issues will transfer into the Premiership.