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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the sole unexpected element of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback people seemed when reports of the outcome and its impact for the top of the standings circulated. Although this 3-1 win at their home ground, which puts the Jambos leading of the league and eight points ahead of their rivals, was earth-shattering in scale, nobody who has been following the progress of both team this campaign will have been in the least shocked by the result.

Over the past 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish football between them, reducing fitba to almost a punchline in the process. Nine games into the present campaign it has become clear that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – might just be prepared to make their move while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

Although a lot of the attention in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being suffered by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the situation at their stadium has meant that the title holders' comparatively less severe decline has been allowed to worsen unnoticed. The reigning champions have already dropped a considerable number from their opening nine fixtures this season under their manager. The team's boss has acquired the thousand-yard stare of a man who constantly checking his schedule to see how many time are remaining until his deal ends, and awoke this day to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure here," he told reporters following the defeat, after they had questioned his desire for anything resembling a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is there to try and flip the standards that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

NEW CHALLENGER

Given the horrific beginning to the season being endured by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be anticipated to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has entered the mix. Despite being obliged to function with a war-chest that isn't so much a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the money and expertise of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership mix. In addition to putting in ten million pounds during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club sole use of his top secret data-driven Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has enabled them to unearth unpolished gems from Walsall, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a modest car. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday sporting a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be observed celebrating each goal with the gusto of a person who had likely noticed the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his side's prospects of defeating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets accordingly.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager the head coach after his side's most recent victory, their eighth win in nine outings. "It might be for others on the outside looking in. It could alter perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the lads have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and definitely in fitness we look in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, this is not a situation that this club is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it isn't. But the wonderful, analytics-backed reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, Scottish football might actually have a title race that somebody besides the traditional powers can win.