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HEARTS ON FIRE

Maybe the sole unexpected element of Heart of Midlothian's triumph over Celtic in the Scottish top flight was the extent to which surprised people seemed when news of the outcome and its impact for the top of the table emerged. Although this convincing victory at their home ground, which leaves the Edinburgh side leading of the table and eight points ahead of Celtic, was seismic 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 last 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of Celtic and Rangers have carved up the Scottish league between them, reducing fitba to something of a punchline in the meantime. Nine games into the current campaign it has become clear that Hearts – who number 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 DECLINE

While much of the attention in the Scottish game has been on the disastrous season being endured by Rangers, the full-spectrum nightmare of the circumstances at Ibrox has meant that the title holders' slightly less terminal decay has been allowed to fester below the radar. The defending title winners have already lost a considerable number from nine fixtures this term under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has acquired the distant look of a individual who constantly consulting his schedule to find out how many days are left until his deal expires, and awoke this morning to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"No one has put in more effort in all my time here," he told reporters following the loss, after they had doubted his desire for anything resembling a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is there to attempt to flip the levels that we're at. Everything is under control, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the dreadful beginning to the campaign being experienced by the other Glasgow side, Rodgers and his men could typically 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 mix. Despite being obliged to operate with a budget that isn't so much a small portion of Celtic's as a comparative budgetary baw-hair, Hearts have introduced the investment and knowledge of a renowned businessman to the SPL equation. As well as putting in £10m during the summer, the Premier League figurehead has granted the club exclusive use of his top secret data-driven Jamestown Analytics player identification system.

In an Irish defender, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has enabled them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norway's second division, among other exotic footballing outposts, for the total price of a modest car. Seen at Tynecastle on matchday sporting a Hearts scarf, the notoriously astute sports betting expert could be observed cheering each goal with the gusto of a man who had likely noticed the bookies had greatly underestimated his side's prospects of beating the out-of-sorts title holders, and filled his boots as a result.

MANAGER'S REACTION

"In my opinion it's a statement win," said the facial-haired team manager the head coach after his team's latest victory, their eighth win in nine outings. "It might be for those on the periphery. It might change opinions. It might validate views that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we're really pleased with what the lads have given us. Technically, we look in a good place, and certainly physically we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Of course, this is not a situation that this club is accustomed to being in." No, the manager, it is not. But the glorious, data-driven reality is that for the first time in many years, the Scottish game might actually have a championship battle that a team besides Celtic or Rangers can claim.