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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only unexpected element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which surprised observers appeared when news of the outcome and its consequences for the summit of the table circulated. While this 3-1 win at their home ground, which leaves the Jambos top of the league and a significant margin ahead of Celtic, was seismic in nature, no one who has been tracking the progress of either team this campaign will have been even remotely shocked by the result.

For each of the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish football between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a punchline in the process. Nine games into the current campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be ready to strike while the Glasgow duo influence is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

Although a lot of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by the Ibrox club, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at Ibrox has meant that the title holders' comparatively less severe decay has been able to fester unnoticed. The reigning champions have already dropped 10 points from their opening nine league games this term under their manager. The Celtic manager has acquired the thousand-yard stare of a man who can't stop checking his Google calendar to see how many days are remaining until his contract expires, and awoke this morning to discover the answer is 246.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure here," he told the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for anything resembling a title fight. "Therefore the drive is there to attempt to reverse the standards that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

NEW CHALLENGER

Given the dreadful beginning to the season being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his players could typically be expected to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year an capital city challenger has joined the mix. In spite of being obliged to operate with a war-chest 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 ten million pounds during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has provided Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven proprietary scouting recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to unearth unpolished gems from Walsall, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a modest car. Seen at their home venue on matchday wearing a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be seen cheering each goal with the gusto of a man who had likely realized the bookies had greatly misjudged his side's prospects of beating the out-of-sorts title holders, and placed large bets as a result.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager Derek McInnes after his team's most recent success, their eighth in nine outings. "It might be for those on the outside looking in. It might change opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the lads have provided us. In terms of skill, we look in a good place, and certainly in fitness we look in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it is not. But the wonderful, analytics-backed truth is that for the initial occasion in ages, Scottish football might genuinely have a championship battle that a team other than the traditional powers can win.