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JAMBOS BLAZING

Maybe the only unexpected element of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was just how surprised people seemed when news of the outcome and its consequences for the summit of the standings emerged. While this convincing victory at their home ground, which leaves the Jambos top of the league and a significant margin ahead of their rivals, was seismic in nature, no one who has been following the progress of both team this season will have been even remotely shocked by the final score.

Over the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish league between them, reducing the beautiful game to almost a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the present campaign it has become apparent that Hearts – who count Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their famous supporters – might just be ready to strike while the Glasgow duo iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

Although much 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 slightly less terminal decline has been allowed to worsen unnoticed. The reigning champions have so far lost a considerable number from nine fixtures this season under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has developed the thousand-yard stare of a individual who can't stop checking his Google calendar to see how many days are left until his contract ends, and awoke this day to discover the number is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure here," he told the media following the loss, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of a title fight. "So the motivation is there to attempt to reverse the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the horrific start to the season being endured by the other Glasgow side, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be expected to get away with their own failure to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has joined the mix. Despite being forced to operate with a budget that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have added the investment and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. As well as putting in £10m 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 Norwegian second tier, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the combined cost of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at Tynecastle on matchday sporting a club colours, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be seen cheering each goal with the gusto of a person who had likely realized the oddsmakers had greatly misjudged his side's chances of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and filled his boots as a result.

COACH'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager the head coach after his team's latest success, their eighth in nine league matches. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It might change opinions. It might validate opinions that there's a fine line. But let's not kid ourselves, we are delighted with what the players have provided us. In terms of skill, we appear in a strong position, and certainly in fitness we seem in a good place, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position 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 ages, Scottish football might genuinely have a title race that a team other than the traditional powers can claim.