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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the sole surprising aspect of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over Celtic in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback observers appeared when news of the result and its impact for the summit of the table emerged. Although this convincing victory at their home ground, which puts the Jambos top of the league and eight points clear of Celtic, was seismic in nature, no one who has been tracking the progress of both team this season will have been in the least shocked by the final score.

Over the last four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of the Old Firm have divided the Scottish football between them, reducing fitba to something of a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the current season it has become apparent that Hearts – who count celebrated snooker player, Sir Chris Hoy and renowned actor among their famous supporters – might just be ready to make their move while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S DECLINE

Although much of the attention in Scotland has been on the disastrous season being endured by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the situation at their stadium has meant that the title holders' slightly less terminal decline has been able to worsen below the radar. The defending title winners have already dropped 10 points from their opening nine fixtures this term under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has acquired the distant look of a individual who can't stop checking his schedule to see how many days are remaining until his contract expires, and awoke this morning to learn the answer is 246.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure at the club," he informed the media following the defeat, after they had doubted his appetite for anything resembling a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is there to attempt to reverse the levels that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the horrific beginning to the campaign being endured by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his men could typically be expected to escape scrutiny for their own inability to roar out of the traps, but this year 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 Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have introduced the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL equation. As well as investing ten million pounds during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club sole use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and Cláudio Braga it has allowed them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovakian top flight and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, for the combined cost of a modest car. Seen at their home venue on Sunday wearing a club colours, the notoriously astute professional gambler could be observed celebrating each score with the enthusiasm of a man who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his side's prospects of defeating the struggling title holders, and placed large bets as a result.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a message-sending victory," said bearded team manager Derek McInnes after his team's most recent victory, their eighth win in nine league matches. "It might be for those on the outside looking in. It might change perceptions. It may confirm opinions that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the lads have given us. In terms of skill, we appear in a strong position, and definitely physically we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Of course, it's not a position that this club is used to being in." Correct, the manager, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the initial occasion in many years, Scottish football might genuinely have a title race that a team besides the traditional powers can claim.