SCOTLAND's place in the top ten for European coefficient rankings could be at risk.
Currently, the nation sits in eighth spot after the recent years of good form by Scottish teams in Europe, particularly Rangers.
The eventual reward for that was the winners of the Premiership gaining an automatic spot in this season's Champions League, as well as less qualifying round for the runners-up.
This also benefitted Hearts as the Europa League play-off spot filtered down to third spot in the domestic table.
However, so far from a possible 36 points available in the Champions League and Conference League group stages, only four have been picked up.
They came in Hearts' win over RFS and Celtic's stalemate with Shakhtar Donetsk.
With Rangers also in the Champions League mix, combined, all three teams have conceded a total of 37 goals with just six in reply.
Therefore, there are legitimate concerns about the poor form of the three Scottish sides in European competitions in this campaign.
Unfortunately, it doesn't get any easier with Rangers travelling to Napoli, Celtic facing Real Madrid in Spain and then Hearts making their way to Turkey to play Istanbul Basaksehir.
It seems increasingly unlikely that any of the teams will be involved in European action post-Christmas, meaning there's only six more games in total for some coefficient points to be racked up.
Now, Scotland should be looking over its shoulder in the rankings as other countries look to take advantage of the nation's overall slump.
Both Belgium and Austria are closing the gap. The former have Union SG and Club Brugge flying their flag. They are now within 0.40 points of Scotland.
RB Salzburg are picking up points for Austria too, which could potentially see them overtake Scotland.
Scotland could then drop out of the top ten. That said, both first and second place in this season's Premiership will automatically qualify for next year's Champions League due to Scotland's current ranking.
So the impacts of dropping outside the top ten wouldn't be felt until the 2024/25 season.
