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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the sole surprising element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was just how taken aback observers seemed when news of the result and its impact for the top of the standings emerged. Although this 3-1 win at their home ground, which puts the Edinburgh side leading of the league and a significant margin clear of their rivals, was earth-shattering in scale, no one who has been tracking the progress of either team this campaign will have been even remotely shocked by the final score.

Over the past four decades, the Glasgow duopoly of Celtic and Rangers have divided the Scottish football between them, turning fitba to almost a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the present season it has become apparent that Hearts – who count celebrated snooker player, Sir Chris Hoy and Ken Stott among their celebrity fans – could be ready to strike while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

While a lot of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the absolute bin-fire being suffered by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at Ibrox has resulted in that Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been able to worsen unnoticed. The reigning champions have already dropped 10 points from nine league games this term under Brendan Rodgers. The team's boss has developed the distant look 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 morning to discover the number is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time at the club," he informed the media following the defeat, after they had questioned his desire for anything resembling a title fight. "Therefore the drive is there to try and reverse the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, there is plenty of time."

NEW CHALLENGER

Given the horrific beginning to the campaign being experienced by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could normally be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but on this occasion an capital city challenger has joined the fray. Despite being obliged to operate with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a minuscule amount in comparison, the Tynecastle outfit have added the money and knowledge of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. As well as investing £10m during the off-season, the Premier League figurehead has provided Hearts exclusive use of his highly confidential data-driven Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In Oisin McEntee, a Greek talent and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled 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 total price of a modest car. Seen at their home venue on matchday sporting a club colours, the notoriously astute professional gambler could be observed celebrating each score with the gusto of a man who had likely realized the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's prospects of defeating the struggling champions, and filled his boots as a result.

MANAGER'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion 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 those on the outside looking in. It could alter perceptions. It might validate views that there's a tightrope. But let's not kid ourselves, we're really pleased with what the players have given us. Technically, we appear in a good place, and certainly physically we look in a good place, so long may that continue. Of course, this is not a situation that the team is accustomed to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the initial occasion in ages, the Scottish game might genuinely have a championship battle that somebody other than Celtic or Rangers can win.