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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the only unexpected element of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback observers appeared when reports of the result and its consequences for the summit of the table emerged. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which leaves the Jambos leading of the table and eight points clear of their rivals, was seismic in nature, no one who has been following the fortunes of either team this campaign will have been in the least shocked by the result.

For each of the past 40 seasons, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish football between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a punchline in the process. Nine games into the current season it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be prepared to make their move while the Glasgow duo influence is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

While a lot of the focus in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being suffered by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the situation at their stadium has meant that Celtic's slightly less terminal decline has been allowed to worsen unnoticed. The reigning champions have so far dropped 10 points from nine league games this season under Brendan Rodgers. 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 left until his deal ends, and awoke this day to discover the answer is 246.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure here," he informed reporters following the loss, after they had doubted his desire for anything resembling a championship battle. "So the motivation is there to try and reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

NEW CHALLENGER

Given the dreadful start to the campaign being endured by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his players could normally be expected to get away with their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year an Edinburgh disruptor has entered the fray. In spite of being obliged to operate with a war-chest that is not just a small portion of Celtic's as a minuscule amount in comparison, the Tynecastle outfit have introduced the money and expertise of a renowned businessman to the Scottish Premiership equation. In addition to putting in £10m during the off-season, the Brighton owner has granted Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential analytics-based Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to unearth hidden talents from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd professional gambler could be seen cheering each goal with the gusto of a person who had almost certainly noticed the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his team's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and placed large bets accordingly.

COACH'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his team's most recent victory, their eighth in nine league matches. "It might be for others on the periphery. It could alter opinions. It might validate views that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the players have given us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and definitely physically we look in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, this is not a situation that this club is used to being in." No, the manager, it isn't. But the wonderful, data-driven reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, the Scottish game might actually have a championship battle that somebody besides Celtic or Rangers can win.