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JAMBOS BLAZING

Perhaps the only surprising aspect of Hearts' triumph over the Glasgow giants in the Scottish Premiership was the extent to which taken aback people seemed when news of the outcome and its consequences for the summit of the table circulated. While this convincing victory at Tynecastle, which puts the Jambos top of the table and a significant margin ahead of Celtic, was seismic in nature, no one who has been tracking the fortunes of either squad this season will have been in the least astonished by the result.

Over the last 40 seasons, the dominance of two Glasgow clubs of the Old Firm have carved up the Scottish football between them, turning the beautiful game to almost a joke in the meantime. Several matches into the current season it has become clear that Heart of Midlothian – who number Stephen Hendry, Olympic champion and renowned actor among their celebrity fans – could be ready to strike while the Old Firm iron is freezing cold.

THE CHAMPIONS' SLUMP

Although much of the focus 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 Celtic's slightly less terminal decay has been able to fester unnoticed. The defending title winners have so far dropped a considerable number from nine league games this season under Brendan Rodgers. The Celtic manager has developed the thousand-yard stare of a man who constantly consulting his schedule to see how many time are left until his contract ends, and awoke this day to discover the answer is over two hundred.

"I've never worked harder in my entire tenure at the club," he told the media following the loss, after they had questioned his desire for any kind of a championship battle. "Therefore the drive is there to try and reverse the standards that we're at. It's absolutely fine, it's still so early."

EDINBURGH DISRUPTOR

Considering the horrific start to the season being endured by Rangers, the Celtic boss and his men could typically be expected to escape scrutiny for their own failure to roar out of the traps, but this year an capital city challenger has joined the fray. In spite of being obliged to function with a war-chest that isn't so much a tiny fraction of Celtic's as a minuscule amount in comparison, Hearts have introduced the investment and expertise of Tony Bloom to the SPL mix. In addition to investing £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 Oisin McEntee, Alexandros Kyziridis and a Brazilian prospect it has allowed them to discover unpolished gems from an English lower-league side, the Slovak first division and the Norwegian second tier, among other lesser-known leagues, for the total price of a modest car. Seen at Tynecastle on Sunday wearing a Hearts scarf, the famously shrewd sports betting expert could be seen celebrating each score with the enthusiasm of a person who had likely realized the oddsmakers had massively misjudged his team's chances of beating the struggling champions, and placed large bets as a result.

COACH'S RESPONSE

"In my opinion it's a statement win," said the facial-haired Hearts gaffer the head coach after his side's most recent success, their eighth in nine outings. "It might be for others on the periphery. It could alter perceptions. It might validate opinions that there's a tightrope. But we must be realistic, we are delighted with what the lads have provided us. Technically, we look in a good place, and definitely in fitness we seem in a excellent shape, so we hope it persists. Naturally, it's not a position that this club is accustomed to being in." No, Derek, it is not. But the wonderful, data-driven reality is that for the first time in many years, Scottish football might actually have a championship battle that a team besides Celtic or Rangers can win.