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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the sole surprising aspect of Heart of Midlothian's victory over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which surprised observers appeared when reports of the outcome and its impact for the top of the table circulated. While this convincing victory at their home ground, which leaves the Jambos leading of the league and a significant margin clear of Celtic, was seismic in scale, nobody who has been tracking the progress of both team this campaign will have been in the least shocked by the final score.

For each of the past 40 seasons, 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 current campaign it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who count celebrated snooker player, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their celebrity fans – could be ready to strike while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

CELTIC'S SLUMP

Although a lot of the focus in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being suffered by Rangers, the complete turmoil of the situation at Ibrox has meant that Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been able to fester below the radar. The defending title winners have already dropped 10 points from nine fixtures this term under their manager. The team's boss has acquired the distant look of a man who constantly checking his Google calendar to see how many time are remaining until his contract ends, and woke up this day to discover the number is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in all my time here," he told the media following the loss, after they had questioned his appetite for anything resembling a championship battle. "So the motivation is present to try and flip the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Given the horrific beginning to the campaign being experienced by Rangers, Rodgers and his men could typically 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 fray. Despite being forced to function with a budget that is not just a tiny fraction of their rivals' as a minuscule amount in comparison, Hearts have introduced the investment and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the Scottish Premiership equation. As well as investing ten million pounds during the off-season, the Brighton owner has granted the club sole use of his highly confidential analytics-based Jamestown Analytics recruitment tool.

In Oisin McEntee, 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 Norway's second division, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a modest car. Spotted at their home venue on matchday wearing a club colours, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be observed cheering each score with the enthusiasm of a person who had almost certainly realized the oddsmakers had massively underestimated his team's chances of defeating the out-of-sorts champions, and placed large bets as a result.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"I don't think it's a message-sending victory," said the facial-haired team manager Derek McInnes after his side's most recent success, their eighth win in nine outings. "Perhaps it is for others on the outside looking in. It might change perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the lads have provided us. In terms of skill, we appear in a strong position, and definitely in fitness we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Of course, it's not a position that the team is used to being in." No, the manager, it isn't. But the glorious, analytics-backed reality is that for the first time in many years, Scottish football might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody besides the traditional powers can claim.