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JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the sole unexpected element of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was just how surprised observers appeared when reports of the outcome and its impact for the summit of the table circulated. Although this convincing victory at their home ground, which leaves the Jambos leading of the league and eight points ahead of their rivals, was earth-shattering in nature, nobody who has been tracking the fortunes of both squad this season will have been in the least shocked by the final score.

For each of the last four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish football between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the present campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their famous supporters – could be ready to make their move while the Old Firm influence is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' DECLINE

While a lot of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by the Ibrox club, the complete turmoil of the situation at their stadium has meant that Celtic's comparatively less severe decay has been able to worsen below the radar. The defending title winners have so far lost 10 points from their opening nine fixtures this term under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has developed the distant look of a man who can't stop consulting his Google calendar to find out how many time are remaining until his deal expires, and woke up this day to discover the number is 246.

"No one has put in more effort in my entire tenure at the club," he told reporters following the defeat, after they had questioned his appetite for anything resembling a title fight. "So the motivation is present to attempt to reverse the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

NEW CHALLENGER

Considering the dreadful beginning to the campaign being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his players could typically be expected to get away with their own failure to start strongly, but on this occasion an Edinburgh disruptor has joined the mix. In spite of being forced to operate with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, the Tynecastle outfit have added the investment and expertise of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. As well as putting in £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has provided the club sole use of his top secret data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to unearth unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Spotted at their home venue on Sunday sporting a club colours, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be seen cheering each goal with the gusto of a person who had almost certainly noticed the bookies had massively underestimated his team's chances of beating the out-of-sorts title holders, and placed large bets accordingly.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said bearded Hearts gaffer the head coach after his team's most recent victory, their eighth in nine league matches. "It might be for others on the outside looking in. It might change perceptions. It might validate views that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we're really pleased with what the players have given us. Technically, we appear in a strong position, and definitely physically we look in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that the team is used to being in." No, the manager, it isn't. But the wonderful, data-driven truth is that for the first time in ages, the Scottish game might actually have a title race that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can claim.