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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only surprising element of Hearts' victory over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was just how taken aback observers appeared when reports of the outcome and its impact for the top of the table circulated. Although this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos top of the table and eight points ahead of their rivals, was seismic in nature, no one who has been following the progress of both team this campaign will have been in the least shocked by the final score.

Over the past four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish league between them, turning the beautiful game to almost a joke in the meantime. Several matches into the current campaign it has become apparent that Heart of Midlothian – who count Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – might just be ready to make their move while the Old Firm influence is at its weakest.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

While much of the focus in Scotland has been on the absolute bin-fire being endured by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at their stadium has meant that Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been able to worsen unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far dropped 10 points from their opening nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has developed the distant look of a man who can't stop checking his schedule to see how many time are left until his deal ends, and woke up this day to learn the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure here," he told the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his desire for any kind of a title fight. "Therefore the drive is there to try and flip the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

NEW CHALLENGER

Given the horrific beginning to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his players could typically be expected to get away with their own inability to start strongly, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has entered the mix. Despite being obliged to function with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the money and knowledge of a renowned businessman to the SPL mix. In addition to putting in £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted Hearts sole use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has allowed them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a modest car. Seen at their home venue on matchday sporting a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute professional gambler could be observed cheering each score with the gusto of a person who had likely noticed the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his side's prospects of beating the struggling champions, and placed large bets as a result.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his side's latest victory, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for those on the outside looking in. It could alter opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and certainly in fitness we look in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Of course, this is not a situation that this club is used to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the wonderful, analytics-backed reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can win.