It was not a good week for Scottish football's European coefficient. Celtic and Rangers both suffered 2-1 defeats to Lazio and Aris Limassol, respectively, while Aberdeen drew 1-1 at home to HJK Helsinki.

The Dons securing Scotland's only coefficient points of matchday two means there is only an increase of 0.2 to the total.

For Scotland to keep its top 10 position in the rankings, which guarantees direct entry into the Champions League for next season's Scottish Premiership winners, teams must aim to accumulate six to seven points between them each season.

This is because the coefficient is calculated on a cumulative five-year basis, and on average a total of 33.3 points has been enough to secure a top 10 spot over the last five years.

Scotland has added 2.8 points to their ranking this season. So far in this campaign, Scotland is the 28th best performing nation, with countries like Azerbaijan, Cyprus and Kosovo adding more to their totals.

Ahead of Scotland are Turkey in ninth and they added one whole point thanks to Galatasaray’s 3-2 victory at Old Trafford and Fenerbahçe’s 2-1 win away to Spartak Trnava. 

It is unlikely they will be caught. Directly behind Scotland are Austria. RB Salzburg did lose to Real Sociedad but they still have a good chance of reaching the last 16.

This is the biggest threat to retaining a top 10 position, as qualifying for the later stages of the Champions League gains a country one whole coefficient point.

Behind Austria in 12th are Switzerland – and up until this week they had been poor in Europe. Young Boys added 0.2 points to the Swiss total thanks to a 2-2 draw in Serbia.

Where Scotland finishes in the coefficient rankings this season will determine the state of play for the European places awarded at the end of next season.

If they drop out of the top 10 then the winners of the Scottish Premiership will no longer get an automatic place in the Champions League.

At the end of this season, the points from the best campaign in the last five years (2019/20) will drop off the rolling five-year coefficient total.

That will remove 9.75 points from Scotland's total haul, and as a result, they would start next season way down in sixteenth place.

Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Israel, Norway and Denmark will all currently start ahead of Scotland in the fight to finish in the top 10.

If the table ends like that at the end of the next season then the SPFL champions at the end of the 2025/26 season would have to play three qualifiers, second place would have three conference league qualifiers and the winners of the Scottish Cup would face four rounds of Europa League qualifying.

This is a worst case scenario but provides a warning if results do not improve.