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HEARTS ON FIRE

Perhaps the only surprising element of Hearts' victory over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which surprised people seemed when reports of the result and its consequences for the top of the standings circulated. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which leaves the Edinburgh side top of the league and eight points ahead of Celtic, was seismic in nature, no one who has been following the progress of both squad this season will have been even remotely astonished by the result.

For each of the last four decades, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish football between them, reducing the beautiful game to something of a joke in the meantime. Nine games into the present season it has become clear that Hearts – who count celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – might just be ready to strike while the Old Firm influence is at its weakest.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

Although a lot of the focus in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being suffered by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the circumstances at their stadium has resulted in that Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been able to fester below the radar. The defending title winners have so far dropped 10 points from their opening nine league games this season under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has developed the thousand-yard stare of a individual who can't stop consulting his Google calendar to find out how many days are left until his contract ends, and awoke this day to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in all my time here," he told reporters following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for any kind of 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, Rodgers and his men could typically be anticipated to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but this year an capital city challenger has entered the mix. Despite being forced to function 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 expertise of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership mix. As well as putting in £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club sole use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, a Greek talent and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to discover unpolished gems from Walsall, the Slovakian top flight and the Norway's second division, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a mid-range family saloon. Seen at their home venue on Sunday wearing a club colours, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be seen celebrating each score with the gusto of a person who had likely noticed the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his side's prospects of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and placed large bets accordingly.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said bearded Hearts gaffer Derek McInnes after his team's most recent victory, their eighth in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the periphery. It might change opinions. It may confirm opinions that there's a fine line. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the players have provided us. In terms of skill, we appear in a good place, and certainly physically we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, this is not a situation that the team is accustomed to being in." Correct, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven truth is that for the first time in ages, Scottish football might genuinely have a title race that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can win.